4 ms·

Unfortunately, that doesn't really counteract the new skills he will learn while in jail. :/

by furyg3 16y ago

davidw 16y ago
So we should just let him romp around, stealing what he feels like? I'm all for improving jails (and not filling them with people busted for drugs), but this guy sounds like he ought to be spending some time in a facility where he is not at liberty to steal people's things, however it's run. Like others have noted, he was already on probation for some other crime, which is likely what got him locked up, not simply stealing the GPS.
- _delirium 16y ago
  Distinguishing those cases is the trick, I suppose. Especially for first-time offenders, there are people who might be deterred from future offenses by being put on probation, once they've realized that they got caught and had better knock it off, who would instead turn into more hardened criminals if they're put in jail (and, with the current state of U.S. jails, likely end up joining a prison gang). But there are other people who have to physically be restrained from committing more crimes. The current common sentence lengths don't seem that useful to me, though. Sentences like 6-36 months are just about the worst I can think of, keeping someone in jail just long enough to inculcate all the negative effects, while not actually keeping them off the streets that long. It creates this odd revolving-door mentality, where in some communities it's completely common to be in and out of prison, and everyone's got a bunch of criminals in their social circle. Now we could just lock all those same people up for 20+ years and not let them back out of prison to reoffend, but that seems like a problematic solution as well, given the current numbers (you'd have to be prepared to permanently lock up a large proportion of the population). One start might be to start basing policy on empirical data. Can we find patterns in which kinds of policies have deterrent or anti-deterrent effects on which kinds of people? My impression is that laws and sentencing are not very strong based on empirical research currently. It does occasionally get brought up in debates, but the stuff written into the laws seems mostly pulled out of a hat.
  - zaphar 16y ago
    I've always thought that a policy of repayment would be both the fairest and most deterrent policy. Jail time should be dependent not on time spent but on time to repayment. Theft should be considered a debt. Repayment of that debt should be worked off. If thieves could count on having to do real work to repay debt that would both reduce the incentive to steal and possibly reduce sentence lengths for some cases. Spend several months working off a debt for a petty theft and room and board at the prison and that job at McDonalds starts looking a little better. Maybe even that GED. The goal should be lower incentives for theft, raise incentives for real work and a clear demonstration to the thieves that their sentence is tied to the value of the stolen item. This obviously doesn't apply in cases of physical violence or murder but for the cases you seem to be focusing on in your discussion I think it's superior to straight time based term.
    - JeffL 16y ago
      I do like the idea of repayment, but in practice, can most people in jails really earn any money with which to repay? Seems like there aren't that many unskilled jobs around anymore, especially ones that can take place inside of jail.
      - zaphar 16y ago
        Just because there aren't now doesn't mean there can't be. Even if it's make work it might still fill the bill.

Unfortunately, that doesn't really counteract the new skills he will learn while in jail. :/

by furyg3 16y ago

Unfortunately, that doesn't really counteract the new skills he will learn while in jail. :/

So we should just let him romp around, stealing what he feels like? I'm all for improving jails (and not filling them with people busted for drugs), but this guy sounds like he ought to be spending some time in a facility where he is not at liberty to steal people's things, however it's run. Like others have noted, he was already on probation for some other crime, which is likely what got him locked up, not simply stealing the GPS.

_delirium 16y ago
Distinguishing those cases is the trick, I suppose. Especially for first-time offenders, there are people who might be deterred from future offenses by being put on probation, once they've realized that they got caught and had better knock it off, who would instead turn into more hardened criminals if they're put in jail (and, with the current state of U.S. jails, likely end up joining a prison gang). But there are other people who have to physically be restrained from committing more crimes. The current common sentence lengths don't seem that useful to me, though. Sentences like 6-36 months are just about the worst I can think of, keeping someone in jail just long enough to inculcate all the negative effects, while not actually keeping them off the streets that long. It creates this odd revolving-door mentality, where in some communities it's completely common to be in and out of prison, and everyone's got a bunch of criminals in their social circle. Now we could just lock all those same people up for 20+ years and not let them back out of prison to reoffend, but that seems like a problematic solution as well, given the current numbers (you'd have to be prepared to permanently lock up a large proportion of the population). One start might be to start basing policy on empirical data. Can we find patterns in which kinds of policies have deterrent or anti-deterrent effects on which kinds of people? My impression is that laws and sentencing are not very strong based on empirical research currently. It does occasionally get brought up in debates, but the stuff written into the laws seems mostly pulled out of a hat.
- zaphar 16y ago
  I've always thought that a policy of repayment would be both the fairest and most deterrent policy. Jail time should be dependent not on time spent but on time to repayment. Theft should be considered a debt. Repayment of that debt should be worked off. If thieves could count on having to do real work to repay debt that would both reduce the incentive to steal and possibly reduce sentence lengths for some cases. Spend several months working off a debt for a petty theft and room and board at the prison and that job at McDonalds starts looking a little better. Maybe even that GED. The goal should be lower incentives for theft, raise incentives for real work and a clear demonstration to the thieves that their sentence is tied to the value of the stolen item. This obviously doesn't apply in cases of physical violence or murder but for the cases you seem to be focusing on in your discussion I think it's superior to straight time based term.
  - JeffL 16y ago
    I do like the idea of repayment, but in practice, can most people in jails really earn any money with which to repay? Seems like there aren't that many unskilled jobs around anymore, especially ones that can take place inside of jail.
    - zaphar 16y ago
      Just because there aren't now doesn't mean there can't be. Even if it's make work it might still fill the bill.