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> Four years is hardly a deterrent. It’s barely a slap on the wrist considering the number of lives destroyed by that plague. This is the exact kind of emotion

> Four years is hardly a deterrent. It’s barely a slap on the wrist considering the number of lives destroyed by that plague. This is the exact kind of emotional thinking that makes it so easy to jack up sentencing to an unreasonable degree. It's why we spent so many millennia of human history insensitive to the torture and abuse of our fellow man so long as he could be labeled a criminal. First, you're comparing a single doctor's sentence to the entirety of the misery caused by a crisis caused by many, many people and systems. Second, what makes you think four years isn't a deterrent? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but we should be using evidence to decide that, not knee-jerk emotional reactions.

loufe 9y ago
I have to agree. It's not "a slap on the wrist" at all. A criminal record is a massive hurdle to overcome in finding work or keeping standing with any professional association. Not to mention the damage to reputation, personal relationships, finances, and family dependencies. Purely emotional thinking does not help the problem.
KMag 9y ago
This. Deterrent effectiveness is quantifiable and repeated psychological studies show that increasing the expected chance of getting caught is a much higher deterrent value than increasing the expected number of years behind bars. One's subjective feeling of deterrence is strongly influenced by one's natural subconscious desire for mob revenge. Cultural change away from mob revenge starts with changing the dialogue. The cost to society is roughly linear in the number of years behind bars, and the deterrent factor gets dramatically sub-linear pretty quickly as number of years behind bars increases. That money spent on guards, etc. and opportunity cost (including lost taxable income) of having a potentially productive member of society behind bars are better spent on better monitoring and other measures that increase the likelihood that offenders are prosecuted. Increasing publicity of convictions would presumably also be a pretty cheap way to reduce crime by increasing the perceived chances of getting caught. I would really like to see it be a common thing for criminals to cut plea deals including recording public service announcements publicizing that they got caught. Though, this would also probably make it harder for reformed ex-convicts to escape their pasts.

loufe 9y ago

I have to agree. It's not "a slap on the wrist" at all. A criminal record is a massive hurdle to overcome in finding work or keeping standing with any professional association. Not to mention the damage to reputation, personal relationships, finances, and family dependencies. Purely emotional thinking does not help the problem.

KMag 9y ago

This. Deterrent effectiveness is quantifiable and repeated psychological studies show that increasing the expected chance of getting caught is a much higher deterrent value than increasing the expected number of years behind bars. One's subjective feeling of deterrence is strongly influenced by one's natural subconscious desire for mob revenge. Cultural change away from mob revenge starts with changing the dialogue. The cost to society is roughly linear in the number of years behind bars, and the deterrent factor gets dramatically sub-linear pretty quickly as number of years behind bars increases. That money spent on guards, etc. and opportunity cost (including lost taxable income) of having a potentially productive member of society behind bars are better spent on better monitoring and other measures that increase the likelihood that offenders are prosecuted. Increasing publicity of convictions would presumably also be a pretty cheap way to reduce crime by increasing the perceived chances of getting caught. I would really like to see it be a common thing for criminals to cut plea deals including recording public service announcements publicizing that they got caught. Though, this would also probably make it harder for reformed ex-convicts to escape their pasts.