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Jeez I’m wondering what the going price would be for that today.
by drpgq 6y ago
Jeez I’m wondering what the going price would be for that today.
- warent 6y agoProbably more of a price in terms of favors and relationships than money. e.g. If a mob could somehow bust you out then you belong to them for some percent of the prison time. Just a guess though.
- eru 6y agoDo you mean busting out as in a violent prison break, or having the right connections and bribes and intimidation behind the scenes?
- kbenson 6y agoI've seen reports that it's somewhat common for the rich in China[1], so there might be some info on what it costs there, and maybe some extrapolation could be made. Either the "serve prison in lieu of me" or "say you were the one that committed the crime" version. There are weird perverse incentives at play in some of the laws of criminal justice system in China.[2] 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4339051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4339051 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10173395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10173395 (warning, the linked article describes very disturbing behavior and specific instances)
- taneq 6y agoThis reminds me of the classic phrase, “the butler did it”. It took me ages to realise that butlers aren’t naturally villainous, but rather were expected to take the fall for any malfeasance committed by the family.
- effingwewt 6y agoedit- after reading up on this, I'm not sure where you got your information from but everything I could find shows it to just be the common detective/mystery trope.
- fouc 6y agoIt just follows logically that historically some powerful families would have paid off a fall guy if necessary, and they could have used a butler in some cases. This could've been the origin of the term, before it even showed up in murder mysteries. Perhaps from the 1700s
- coldtea 6y ago>This could've been the origin of the term, before it even showed up in murder mysteries. Perhaps from the 1700s The thing is, it doesn't show up in murder mysteries themselves (except only as a fourth-wall breaking meta-reference to the trope). It originates with murder mystery readers -- as the name of a trope.
- rhizome 6y agoI bet a good butler is much harder to find than a patsy.
- eru 6y agoYes. Though you need a patsy who would have conceivably eg have access to the fancy cars.
- whatshisface 6y agoBut... Were they really?
- dyingkneepad 6y ago> It took me ages to realise that butlers aren’t naturally villainous, but rather were expected to take the fall for any malfeasance committed by the family. I just realized that in Oct 28th, 2020. Thanks for that.
- coldtea 6y agoThis might or might not be true, but it's not the origin of "the butler did it". The origin of the phrase is in the classical detective story trope.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> The origin of the phrase is in the classical detective story trope. Which, if I'm not mistaken, itself doesn't derive from household staff taking the fall for their employers, but from them being omnipresent but, by strong social custom, ignored.
- coldtea 6y agoYeah, I'm fairly sure that's the case. So while checking the motives of the high society suspects, nobody would suspect the lowly butler -- which, in another trope, had some dark past related to the family he was employeed at...
- runnr_az 6y agoWhoa.
- hoppla 6y agoIs this happening in movies under my nose?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- stubish 6y agoNot so long ago the heir to the Red Bull fortune was alleged to have driven his Ferrari through a police check point at speed, killing an officer. Since it was a police officer killed, the matter was investigated and the mangled Ferrari found on the estate. One of the house hold staff came forward, claiming he was the driver. Apparently this is somewhat expected in these situations. But it did ruffle lots of feathers, so the poor heir had to go on the run for a while. But no worry, a few years later all charges are dropped because everyone has been compensated and it was a while ago, so lets just let bygones be bygones, and go back to dealing with the stress of being a member of Thailand's 2nd wealthiest family. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-24/thailand-charges-against-red-bull-heir-dropped/12490788 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-24/thailand-charges-agai...
- eru 6y agoIt may sound a bit barbaric, but the family of the victim might be better off with a chunk of money than with the knowledge that the perpetrator is serving time. (However, if you look at the incentives and deterrence, inflicting inefficient punishment like sending someone to prison for a long time, might still make sense.)
- wpietri 6y agoNo reason we can't do both.
- eru 6y agoThere's a maximum amount of punishment you want to mete out to convicts. Otherwise everything would carry a penalty worse than death. So there's a trade-off between handing out more of that punishment in fines to be paid to the victim or in economically inefficient activities like prison time. As a related matter, I think corporal punishment deserves more consideration. Mostly because it's cheaper to administer than prison, and also avoids forcible socializing convicts only with each other as happens in prison. (Of course, it's a punishment with a certain cruelty. Alas violence and injury are a common enough sight in overcrowded prisons, too.)
- alasdair_ 6y agoThere have even been death penalty cases that someone else takes the fall for, usually a terminally ill patient who wants their family looked after.
- haramboy 6y agoPer a friend still happening in India and affordable to a surprising percentage of the population