8 ms·

Whats up with this weird obsession with putting people in prison? Is it just an American thing? Why not just put the executives against a wall while we’re at i

• BurnGpuBurn 7y ago
  Some may even find it fair to kill them off, given how many deaths they've caused.
  • buran77 7y ago
    It's definitely not fair to kill them off because you're cutting off the nose to spite the face and mostly hurting people that have no share of the guilt here, the whole ecosystem that relies on that company. "The company" did nothing wrong, the leaders, for encouraging the type of culture that lead to this, and specific other employees, etc. are the ones who did this. It's like a bad tooth. You don't kill the patient for it.
• tw04 7y ago
  Generally speaking, when you murder someone you are punished for it. I'm not entirely sure why this would confuse you. If we didn't punish them, there would be no deterrent for the next person to kill people when it's convenient to do so. It's part of what makes us civilized. Did the CEO PERSONALLY kill them? No, but the claim for outlandish executive pay is executives get paid like they do because they have "all the responsibility". Every time the responsibility bird comes calling, they seem to claim they should have none. Cake and eating and such.
  • nicoburns 7y ago
    > the claim for outlandish executive pay is executives get paid like they do because they have "all the responsibility". Seems like it might be better not to pay them such ridiculous amounts of money in the first place.
    • sneak 7y ago
      Companies don’t generally try to spend money they don’t need to. I have yet to see evidence that the oft-complained-about high tier executive pay in the US is artificially inflated and isn’t just market conditions pricing the work.
      • lexs 7y ago
        But "companies" aren't a conscious being by itself, they are made up of or rather steered by high tier executives right?
      • bumby 7y ago
        How would you define "artificially inflated"? I.e., inflated against what? Overpaid compared to...average worker pay, GDP, stock market gains...?
        • buzzerbetrayed 7y ago
          If you pay a CEO $3,000,000/year, because otherwise he would leave and get paid that at another company (making that other company more successful than your company) then you aren't "artificially inflating" his pay. You are paying him what the market demands.
          • bumby 7y ago
            I don’t disagree but I think the argument you would typically find is that the value they bring is as symmetrical with pay. I can find someone on my parents couch who can’t be hired for $100k/yr. That doesn’t mean they are worth that much to the economy
  • ryanlol 7y ago
    Is it really so hard to believe that this could be an organizational issue where no single individual is culpable enough to deserve a custodial sentence? It really feels like many commenters here are just after some weird revenge porn.
    • mox1 7y ago
      if you create a business culture where your product ends up killing people, then yea I would like our government to have a good hard look at the people responsible for that culture.
    • ClumsyPilot 7y ago
      How many people does an organisation "with the right culture" have to kill before there need to be consequences? I think a hundred is rather large number
      • ryanlol 7y ago
        Who’s arguing against consequences for the organization?
        • ClumsyPilot 7y ago
          Like what kind of consequences, and why do toy think that will be successful in preventing further disasters?
    • alistairSH 7y ago
      There are two possible responses to your suggestion... 1. The company has an inherently bad culture and should be shuttered. 2. The leader of the company is responsible for that bad culture and should be punished (in some way). 1 is a non starter, because Boeing is "too big to fail". We can argue about the correct punishment for 2, but "go home with $60 million" probably isn't sufficient.
      • mokus 7y ago
  • tobib 7y ago
    IANAL but for it to be "murder" there usually needs to be premeditation so I think the comparison is not appropriate in this case.
    • dlp211 7y ago
      This is wrong and why not only multiple degrees of murder charges exist, but multiple different charges exist for homicide, eg murder, manslaughter, negligent homicide.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    • cco 7y ago
      Replace with whatever term you prefer; I think the message is still true regardless of the term lay people use. I don't think anybody would complain if the CEO at the time was charged with 300+ crimes of some sort, manslaughter, gross negligence, murder, whatever. On a jury I'd be pretty lenient to the prosecution in this matter if they could find evidence that the CEO was aware of the calculus taking place, i.e. let's cut some corners with our regulatory capture so we can ship this plane more quickly and make more money, it is at that point that premeditation for me seems apt.
    • Voloskaya 7y ago
      > IANAL Indeed.
    • 8bitsrule 7y ago
      So ... put it before a jury and let them decide. Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
  • chrisseaton 7y ago
    > Generally speaking, when you murder someone you are punished for it. I'm not entirely sure why this would confuse you. Right... but why always prison? Why's it always 'who's going to prison for this'? And the way it's written 'someone should be in prison', 'why isn't anyone in prison' it looks like nobody cares much who goes to prison, just has to be someone. And it's never a case of 'this person should be tried carefully'. It's always just 'PRISON'. Overall, seems like you want to find someone - anyone - drag them out of bed - put them in prison immediately, and you think that'll make something better somehow.
    • QuercusMax 7y ago
      That's not why we want someone to go to prison. It's to send a message to the next company that decides to cut corners. If there are no consequences, then bad behavior will continue to happen.
      • chrisseaton 7y ago
        ...but again, why prison specifically? Why do you need prison to achieve what you want? Why's that the first and only thing you reach for? And why are you calling for the punishment not the trial?
        • kelnos 7y ago
          Because the court of public opinion has already ruled. It's not entirely fair, but I don't think it's entirely unjustified, either. I'm not convinced fines work to actually punish rich executives. Likely they have liability insurance that will cover a lot of it, and golden parachutes will cover the rest. The deprivation of freedom caused by prison is pretty unique. Do you have suggestions for alternative punishments that actually punish the target, and serve as a disincentive for other corporate malfeasance?
        • orestarod 7y ago
          Do you have a better way to punish someone in mind? As stated, small fines make no difference.
• braythwayt 7y ago
  I’m not in favour of our penal system. I don’t think it does much more than provide “justice theatre.” But as long as we’re showing that movie, right now it shows another man being arrested, and the police do not confiscate his cellphone. He uses it in remand, and when it runs out of batteries, he asks for help charging it. He is then charged (npi) with illegally possessing a communications device in remand, and upon conviction for possessing a thing that was not confiscated from him, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison. I’d rather not watch a movie where 9% of the citizenry of a country rots in jail with no expectation of changing their lives for the better when released, with them basically performing slave labour for corporations, and with little evidence it works to deter crime. But if we are going to make this movie, it shouldn’t be a movie about only the poor citizens going to jail for misdeeds. The movie should show this broken concept of punishment being applied to all citizens, equally.
  • staticautomatic 7y ago
    What's with the movie metaphor?
    • braythwayt 7y ago
      Are you familiar with the expression “security theatre?” It doesn’t keep people safe, but it provides enough of the appearance of safety to make people feel like we’re doing everything we can. Justice theatre is the same thing. It doesn’t do anything about poverty or crime, but locking “scary people” up provides enough of the appearance of safety to make people feel like we’re doing everything we can. The fact that it is theatre, and not real policy, helps explain why it’s so tilted against the poor. They’re the scary people. — Theatre is the metaphor. Movie theatre, stage theatre, whatever you like. If you’d prefer not to use a metaphor, fine, but once a metaphor goes around a few times and people have a shared understanding of what it means, it provides a convenient shorthand for communicating something. “Security Theatre” has achieved a certain success as a metaphor. I’m trying to tap into how the justice system resembles the air traffic security system and the bank’s five questions systems and so on.
      • 7y ago
• Bjartr 7y ago
  Because it's one of the primary normative consequences for illegal activity, and people assume that the executives are culpable for the deaths of hundreds and that that's illegal.
• pjmorris 7y ago
  Hammurabi's code (~1700 BC) includes this about building: Building Code 229. If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction sound, and the house which he has built collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, the builder shall be put to death. 233. If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction sound, and a wall cracks, that builder shall strengthen that wall at his own expense. Bugs in houses have been criminalized for a very long time. I don't think it's unreasonable to treat aircraft that carry passengers in a similar fashion. [0] http://www.wright.edu/~christopher.oldstone-moore/Hamm.htm http://www.wright.edu/~christopher.oldstone-moore/Hamm.htm
  • alangpierce 7y ago
    Hammurabi's code probably isn't a great example when looking for precedent on appropriate punishment. Another example from your link is 210: "if a man kills a pregnant woman, the punishment is that the man's daughter shall be killed".
    • Rooster61 7y ago
      I think you are deliberately emphasizing part of the op's post that wasn't meant to be the main point. They weren't commenting on the severity of the punishment, but rather showing an example of a very old case where similar scrutiny was placed on poor workmanship making the builder culpable to negligence and the ensuing fallout of that negligence. From HN guidelines: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
      • alangpierce 7y ago
        Sorry, I wasn't meaning to dismiss the point wholesale, just saying to be cautious of an "appeal to authority"/"appeal to precedent" sort of argument, especially in this case. I do think the severity was at least part of pjmorris's point, and they called it out in their response to me.