5 ms·

FWIW, the rest of the world considers prison sentences in the US to be absurdly long. This guy apparently got 10 years for hacking; in much of Europe, you'd ge

FWIW, the rest of the world considers prison sentences in the US to be absurdly long. This guy apparently got 10 years for hacking; in much of Europe, you'd get less than that for murder.

annoyingnoob 6y ago
Not arguing, the US system needs a lot of work. The recent protest have been about what happens on the street but that is only half of the story. Once you are in the system here its very hard to get out. Our recidivism rates are crazy.
hn23 6y ago
It is as if someone makes runs a company at a profit...
devalgo 6y ago
Couple of guys in Israel just got 6 months of probation for running the world's largest Botnet for Hire.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  And they'll probably get some juicy government contracts for their trouble. Six months is just long enough to show them who's in charge here (the Israeli government), but not long enough for their skills to atrophy so much that they are useless.
- Animats 6y ago
  Israel is soft on crime if the victims are outside Israel. The "binary options" industry depended on this.[1] At one point, 40% of the Israeli financial sector was binary options scams. Only after heavy foreign pressure and arrests in the US and EU was there a weak crackdown. The Times of Israel ran a long series of articles and finally broke up that racket. Their first story, "The Wolves of Tel Aviv"[2], blew open the scale of the scams. Amazingly, it was legal at the time to scam people outside Israel. Times of Israel: "The binary options industry, which is estimated to have employed more than 10,000 people, was outlawed by the Knesset in October 2017 largely as a result of The Times of Israel’s reporting, beginning with a March 2016 article entitled “The Wolves of Tel Aviv.”" "But the industry has not gone away. Many of its operatives have reinvented themselves as “blockchain,” “fintech,” or “cannabis” entrepreneurs, while some of the call centers offering fraudulent investments have moved abroad and now offer fraudulent forex, cryptocurrencies or other investments from such cities as Kyiv, Sofia and Tbilisi." "The binary options industry operated in Israel with impunity for a decade, stealing billions of dollars from millions of people around the world. While US law enforcement continues to tackle the fraud, and has convicted several Israelis and indicted others, Israel has yet to prosecute any of its orchestrators or operatives." [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/dont-let-israel-become-the-promised-land-of-impunity-for-crooks-and-fraudsters/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/dont-let-israel-become-the-pro... [2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels-vast-amoral-binary-options-scam-exposed/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels...
stronglikedan 6y ago
> This guy apparently got 10 years for hacking; in much of Europe, you'd get less than that for murder. Both of those things are problematic, IMHO. As for US sentences being absurdly long, I attribute that to the privatized (profit-incentivized) prison system here. Abolishing that concept would be a good starting point, I think, because it would eliminate a very large chunk of the humanitarian problems in one fell swoop. Then we can work on the rest, starting with the perverse incentives of the legal system itself.
- austincheney 6y ago
  Sentencing is decided by a judge not by a prison warden. Beyond vague conspiracy theories I don’t see the connection.
  - stronglikedan 6y ago
    Conspiracy, yes. Theory, no: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
  - qchris 6y ago
    I don't generally consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but I agree with the previous comment. For-profit prisons not only make money by having more prisoners staying for longer, but in many cases have actually been required to maintain a minimum number of prisoners. That creates a huge incentive to the operators of private prisons to make sure that people are sentenced to terms that are as long as possible, and to make sure that as many people as possible are given sentences that get them into those prisons vs. alternatives like house arrest, community service, court-ordered rehabilitation meeting attendance, etc. I think it would be pretty naive to assume that private actors can have no influence over an unelected/appointed judiciary anyway, but don't forget that many places in the United States have an elected judiciary that needs to campaign every few years to maintain their status, which clearly opens them up to influence by those prisons.
    - austincheney 6y ago
Jabbles 6y ago
> in much of Europe, you'd get less than that for murder Citation needed.
- VLM 6y ago
  Colloquially Americans like to call "murder" any time someone kills someone else. In Germany the translation of murder has VERY specific legal requirements, like detailed planning beforhand, and evil action (cannibalism, sexual intent, terrorism, type stuff). You pretty much have to be a stereotypical serial killer or terrorist in Germany to commit the legal definition of murder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_German_law#Penalties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_German_law#Penalties In the USA, colloquially speaking, not legally speaking, George Floyd was murdered. But in Germany what happened would seem to meet the equivalent of what Americans would call involuntary manslaughter. Clearly, the cops killed that dude while trying to do something vaguely reminiscent of their job, but also clearly, they did not stalk him with evil intent with an intentional plan for a long time and then cannibalize or sexually molest his body as would be required by the legal definition in Germany. Probably. Historically, in Germany, involuntary manslaughter such as two idiot soldiers who don't know each other getting into a drunken bar fight over nothing while one had an undiagnosed brain anuresm that burst during or shortly after the fight will only get like three year sentence and who knows how early of a release. In America that event would colloquially be called "murder", because one person killed another person, but not so much from a strictly legal perspective in Germany.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    > In the USA, colloquially speaking, not legally speaking, George Floyd was murdered. It occurred in Minnesota, which is one of the handful of states with "third-degree murder", which this does appear to fall under. One of the things that separates third-degree murder from manslaughter is the use of inherently dangerous acts, such as kneeling on his neck.
- socialdemocrat 6y ago
  As a fellow European, I can confirm. If you don’t take our word for it then feel free to look it up. We follow cases in our home countries and are used to what sort of sentences get passed.
watwut 6y ago
> in much of Europe, you'd get less than that for murder. That very much depends on what kind of murder.
VLM 6y ago
Plea bargaining, for better or worse, is a uniquely American invention the rest of the world does not share. Committing naughtiness level 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 crime in "EU" and in "USA" and you'll get a punishment of X years for a level 5 conviction in EU. In the USA you'll get a plea bargain offer of X years for agreeing to be guilty of a level 3 crime, or you can take your chances at a trial for a level 5 crime (with admittedly draconian punishment). About 90% to 98% of criminals take the plea. The widely advertised injustice is that on paper, a level 5 crime in EU has the same punishment as a level 3 crime in the USA so the USA is draconian. The actual real world injustice is if you're innocent and demand your right to trial, we give level 8 punishments for level 5 crimes to encourage guilty pleas and "save money". Because we value saving money over justice and fairness. Or maybe we take a weird statistical approach to injustice; yeah it would suck to do time for a level 5 crime but a level 1 punishment might not be worth the 10% odds of success. This has a weird and horrible interaction with mandatory minimum sentences. Without mandatory mins, "yeah he probably didn't do it but he's pleading out to a lessor charge" can result in a very fair punishment like mere probation. But with mandatory mins you have to throw the guy in the slammer for decades or let him walk and thats kinda messy. OR being messy, does it encourage higher levels of care and research? If you commit involuntary manslaughter in Germany, like in a fight in a bar off an army base like a case I know of (I'm not even tangentially involved in other than being in the Army at the same time), yeah, you'll get like 3 years at most. And if you get convicted of manslaughter in the USA you'll get like 8 or so years. That seems terrible. The difference is you get convicted of manslaughter in the USA by doing actual first degree intentional homicide and its plea'd down to involuntary manslaughter. In Germany the laws are different but vaguely comparable to first degree would get you 15 years minimum, which is actually more draconian than the punishment you'd likely get in the USA due to overcrowding.
- coffeecat 6y ago
  > About 90% to 98% of criminals take the plea. Shouldn't that be 90 to 98% of charged suspects? The incentive to take the plea deal exists whether the suspect is actually guilty or not.

FWIW, the rest of the world considers prison sentences in the US to be absurdly long. This guy apparently got 10 years for hacking; in much of Europe, you'd get less than that for murder.

annoyingnoob 6y ago

Not arguing, the US system needs a lot of work. The recent protest have been about what happens on the street but that is only half of the story. Once you are in the system here its very hard to get out. Our recidivism rates are crazy.

hn23 6y ago

It is as if someone makes runs a company at a profit...

devalgo 6y ago

Couple of guys in Israel just got 6 months of probation for running the world's largest Botnet for Hire.

mywittyname 6y ago
And they'll probably get some juicy government contracts for their trouble. Six months is just long enough to show them who's in charge here (the Israeli government), but not long enough for their skills to atrophy so much that they are useless.
Animats 6y ago
Israel is soft on crime if the victims are outside Israel. The "binary options" industry depended on this.[1] At one point, 40% of the Israeli financial sector was binary options scams. Only after heavy foreign pressure and arrests in the US and EU was there a weak crackdown. The Times of Israel ran a long series of articles and finally broke up that racket. Their first story, "The Wolves of Tel Aviv"[2], blew open the scale of the scams. Amazingly, it was legal at the time to scam people outside Israel. Times of Israel: "The binary options industry, which is estimated to have employed more than 10,000 people, was outlawed by the Knesset in October 2017 largely as a result of The Times of Israel’s reporting, beginning with a March 2016 article entitled “The Wolves of Tel Aviv.”" "But the industry has not gone away. Many of its operatives have reinvented themselves as “blockchain,” “fintech,” or “cannabis” entrepreneurs, while some of the call centers offering fraudulent investments have moved abroad and now offer fraudulent forex, cryptocurrencies or other investments from such cities as Kyiv, Sofia and Tbilisi." "The binary options industry operated in Israel with impunity for a decade, stealing billions of dollars from millions of people around the world. While US law enforcement continues to tackle the fraud, and has convicted several Israelis and indicted others, Israel has yet to prosecute any of its orchestrators or operatives." [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/dont-let-israel-become-the-promised-land-of-impunity-for-crooks-and-fraudsters/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/dont-let-israel-become-the-pro... [2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels-vast-amoral-binary-options-scam-exposed/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels...

stronglikedan 6y ago

> This guy apparently got 10 years for hacking; in much of Europe, you'd get less than that for murder. Both of those things are problematic, IMHO. As for US sentences being absurdly long, I attribute that to the privatized (profit-incentivized) prison system here. Abolishing that concept would be a good starting point, I think, because it would eliminate a very large chunk of the humanitarian problems in one fell swoop. Then we can work on the rest, starting with the perverse incentives of the legal system itself.

austincheney 6y ago
Sentencing is decided by a judge not by a prison warden. Beyond vague conspiracy theories I don’t see the connection.
- stronglikedan 6y ago
  Conspiracy, yes. Theory, no: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
- qchris 6y ago
  I don't generally consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but I agree with the previous comment. For-profit prisons not only make money by having more prisoners staying for longer, but in many cases have actually been required to maintain a minimum number of prisoners. That creates a huge incentive to the operators of private prisons to make sure that people are sentenced to terms that are as long as possible, and to make sure that as many people as possible are given sentences that get them into those prisons vs. alternatives like house arrest, community service, court-ordered rehabilitation meeting attendance, etc. I think it would be pretty naive to assume that private actors can have no influence over an unelected/appointed judiciary anyway, but don't forget that many places in the United States have an elected judiciary that needs to campaign every few years to maintain their status, which clearly opens them up to influence by those prisons.
  - austincheney 6y ago

Jabbles 6y ago

> in much of Europe, you'd get less than that for murder Citation needed.

VLM 6y ago
Colloquially Americans like to call "murder" any time someone kills someone else. In Germany the translation of murder has VERY specific legal requirements, like detailed planning beforhand, and evil action (cannibalism, sexual intent, terrorism, type stuff). You pretty much have to be a stereotypical serial killer or terrorist in Germany to commit the legal definition of murder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_German_law#Penalties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_German_law#Penalties In the USA, colloquially speaking, not legally speaking, George Floyd was murdered. But in Germany what happened would seem to meet the equivalent of what Americans would call involuntary manslaughter. Clearly, the cops killed that dude while trying to do something vaguely reminiscent of their job, but also clearly, they did not stalk him with evil intent with an intentional plan for a long time and then cannibalize or sexually molest his body as would be required by the legal definition in Germany. Probably. Historically, in Germany, involuntary manslaughter such as two idiot soldiers who don't know each other getting into a drunken bar fight over nothing while one had an undiagnosed brain anuresm that burst during or shortly after the fight will only get like three year sentence and who knows how early of a release. In America that event would colloquially be called "murder", because one person killed another person, but not so much from a strictly legal perspective in Germany.
- Izkata 6y ago
  > In the USA, colloquially speaking, not legally speaking, George Floyd was murdered. It occurred in Minnesota, which is one of the handful of states with "third-degree murder", which this does appear to fall under. One of the things that separates third-degree murder from manslaughter is the use of inherently dangerous acts, such as kneeling on his neck.
socialdemocrat 6y ago
As a fellow European, I can confirm. If you don’t take our word for it then feel free to look it up. We follow cases in our home countries and are used to what sort of sentences get passed.

watwut 6y ago

> in much of Europe, you'd get less than that for murder. That very much depends on what kind of murder.

VLM 6y ago

Plea bargaining, for better or worse, is a uniquely American invention the rest of the world does not share. Committing naughtiness level 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 crime in "EU" and in "USA" and you'll get a punishment of X years for a level 5 conviction in EU. In the USA you'll get a plea bargain offer of X years for agreeing to be guilty of a level 3 crime, or you can take your chances at a trial for a level 5 crime (with admittedly draconian punishment). About 90% to 98% of criminals take the plea. The widely advertised injustice is that on paper, a level 5 crime in EU has the same punishment as a level 3 crime in the USA so the USA is draconian. The actual real world injustice is if you're innocent and demand your right to trial, we give level 8 punishments for level 5 crimes to encourage guilty pleas and "save money". Because we value saving money over justice and fairness. Or maybe we take a weird statistical approach to injustice; yeah it would suck to do time for a level 5 crime but a level 1 punishment might not be worth the 10% odds of success. This has a weird and horrible interaction with mandatory minimum sentences. Without mandatory mins, "yeah he probably didn't do it but he's pleading out to a lessor charge" can result in a very fair punishment like mere probation. But with mandatory mins you have to throw the guy in the slammer for decades or let him walk and thats kinda messy. OR being messy, does it encourage higher levels of care and research? If you commit involuntary manslaughter in Germany, like in a fight in a bar off an army base like a case I know of (I'm not even tangentially involved in other than being in the Army at the same time), yeah, you'll get like 3 years at most. And if you get convicted of manslaughter in the USA you'll get like 8 or so years. That seems terrible. The difference is you get convicted of manslaughter in the USA by doing actual first degree intentional homicide and its plea'd down to involuntary manslaughter. In Germany the laws are different but vaguely comparable to first degree would get you 15 years minimum, which is actually more draconian than the punishment you'd likely get in the USA due to overcrowding.

coffeecat 6y ago
> About 90% to 98% of criminals take the plea. Shouldn't that be 90 to 98% of charged suspects? The incentive to take the plea deal exists whether the suspect is actually guilty or not.