6 ms·

But, is prosecution truly the way out of this? It doesn't appear to have been effective at preventing plenty of other crimes, in America. Why would it be any mo

But, is prosecution truly the way out of this? It doesn't appear to have been effective at preventing plenty of other crimes, in America. Why would it be any more effective in this case?

legutierr 5y ago
If it’s the same criminals committing the same crime shortly after being released, keeping them in jail will reduce the opportunity they have to commit the crime again, at least for as long as they remain in jail.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  I've absolutely heard this rhetoric about short jail terms before, though, about any number of crimes. Is there data to back this up?
  - ridaj 5y ago
    I think the point was that the number of thefts made outside the prison by people who are in the prison is necessarily zero, unless they escaped. Do you need data to be convinced of this?
    - tomlockwood 5y ago
      They're in prison until they aren't and at that point they may steal enough to make up for the stealing the imprisoning prevented.
      - Swizec 5y ago
        The point of adding a 10s delay on incorrect password attempts isn’t to make it impossible to brute force passwords, it’s to slow an attacker from 600 tries per minute down to 6/min. This is enough of a deterrence to make brute forcing impractical. If you have to wait 7 days between train robberies instead of 24 hours, that’s a big hit to the business model. Maybe enough to make it impractical.
        tomlockwood 5y ago
        Your analogy doesn't really help because they aren't just "delayed". Money is wasted on incarcerating them, they come in close contact with criminals, and it makes their ability to get a job, lower.
- somesortofthing 5y ago
  You're forgetting the cost of jailing them in the first place. Not only is there an upfront cost of $106k per year(assuming we're talking about CA)[1], that person is also not working(or paying taxes) or gaining any useful skills. What they're doing instead is hanging out in a population of other criminals and participating in a social order that incentivizes if not downright mandates behavior that in itself would be considered criminal in wider society. I don't think it's so far fetched to say that the cost society pays to incarcerate someone with the goal of preventing them from committing more crimes can exceed the cost of the crimes themselves. Deterrence is the only possible way to justify these costs(And prisons do have nonzero use as a deterrent), but the current prison situation makes it clear that prison's RoI growth has some seriously diminishing returns that started at a funding level far lower than the current one. [1]https://lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost https://lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost
neither_color 5y ago
What is the alternative though? Societal interventions are a slow, months to years long process to an acute problem. I'm sure most criminals can be reformed through years of education, therapy and trauma healing but you can't deny that lax sentencing and lax enforcement contribute to opportunistic crime sprees like organized retail theft mobs and train robberies. Nobody needs to rob trains to eat, in America, as you put it.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  > Nobody needs to rob trains to eat, in America, as you put it. They don't? That's not what I've heard. https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america
  - creato 5y ago
    My understanding is that most of the people struggling to feed themselves make too much money to qualify for assistance, but too little to reliably feed themselves. Obviously, those people aren't making too much money (as documented by the IRS and/or banks) by robbing trains.
  - refurb 5y ago
    When they have to invent a new term "food insecurity" and your country leads the world in obesity, you know people aren't going hungry in the normal sense of the word.
    - tomlockwood 5y ago
      Do you feel like the obese people are robbing these trains?
      - refurb 5y ago
        Seen photos? Yes, some of them are obese. What’s your point?
efitz 5y ago
Prosecuting crime does not eliminate crime; it minimizes crime. For the criminal justice system to deter crime, there has to be a reasonable chance of getting caught and punished, and the punishment must significantly exceed the benefit that obtained from the crime.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  That's not what I've heard: https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/business-law/do-harsher-punishments-deter-crime https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/business-law/do-harsher-pu...
  - berberous 5y ago
    Some of this is really just common sense. I believe the following: - If murder were not prosecuted, or punished by only a day in jail, murder rates would increase. It would effectively be legal. - Changing the sentence on murder from 10 years to life, however, would be unlikely to have any marginal deterrent effect. Stated more generally, I think many sentences in this country are horrifically long, and dramatically shortening them would not increase crime. But if you decrease them to a level where they are de minimis compared to the benefit of the crime, or just not prosecuted at all, I don’t need a study to tell me crime will increase. It is human nature.
    - tomlockwood 5y ago
      I've heard incorrect folk wisdom parroted as if it were true, before, so I'll wait for the study. Plenty of people claim they have a grasp on common sense, and many of them disagree.
      - efitz 5y ago
        Do you eat when you’re hungry and put on a raincoat outside when it’s raining, or do you wait for a study?
        5y ago
amznthrowaway12 5y ago
Recidivism for most crimes is high. Putting criminals in prison prevents them from committing more crimes.
- Osmose 5y ago
  I mean, no, there's lots of crimes you can commit in jail that can lead you to an even worse sentence. But also recidivism isn't simply some moral badness in a person, there's tons of factors that feed into it, including the community around the person being released, their ability to provide with a record, etc.
- thebigman433 5y ago
  But does prison also cause significant other issues, leading to that recidivism?
- azinman2 5y ago
  And not putting criminals in jail allows them to commit more crimes.
Stupulous 5y ago
Lacking crime data for the counterfactual world where crime wasn't prosecuted, I don't think you can make this assertion. Not to say that you're wrong (and I've seen evidence that you're right), but that you can't just eyeball our crime rate and come to any conclusion. It is counterintuitive to suggest that punishments have an insignificant effect on crime rates. It doesn't pass the 'me' test- even my idealized version of myself would steal if there were no consequences, though it's tricky to judge whether I'd be more or less inclined with variable consequences. Again, doesn't mean it's not true, just sets the bar for evidence a little higher.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  Well, its similarly frustrating to me that the snap response to crime in America still seems to be, more enforcement. Clearly, the crime rate is the result of a multi-faceted set of variables. Why press the "harsher punishment" button? Also if an idealized version of yourself would still steal, perhaps that is also multi-faceted, and requires some other change to society other than the justice system. What do you think you'd steal? I think I'd steal too - mostly from large corporations, because I don't really care if Disney or Walmart profits go down.
  - toast0 5y ago
    > Clearly, the crime rate is the result of a multi-faceted set of variables. Why press the "harsher punishment" button? Because people are perceiving a higher rate of visible crimes within a reasonably short time after the "reduce punishment" button was pushed. Of course, going back to the old ways without any real progress on anything else is going to put us back to the old problems. (Costs of incarceration are high, concerns about fairness, concerns about conditions, etc) > I think I'd steal too - mostly from large corporations, because I don't really care if Disney or Walmart profits go down. I don't necessarily care about their profits per se, but if Walmart (or maybe a chain store you dislike less) leaves my community because of theft, that makes my life harder.
    - tomlockwood 5y ago

But, is prosecution truly the way out of this? It doesn't appear to have been effective at preventing plenty of other crimes, in America. Why would it be any more effective in this case?

legutierr 5y ago

If it’s the same criminals committing the same crime shortly after being released, keeping them in jail will reduce the opportunity they have to commit the crime again, at least for as long as they remain in jail.

tomlockwood 5y ago
I've absolutely heard this rhetoric about short jail terms before, though, about any number of crimes. Is there data to back this up?
- ridaj 5y ago
  I think the point was that the number of thefts made outside the prison by people who are in the prison is necessarily zero, unless they escaped. Do you need data to be convinced of this?
  - tomlockwood 5y ago
    They're in prison until they aren't and at that point they may steal enough to make up for the stealing the imprisoning prevented.
    - Swizec 5y ago
      The point of adding a 10s delay on incorrect password attempts isn’t to make it impossible to brute force passwords, it’s to slow an attacker from 600 tries per minute down to 6/min. This is enough of a deterrence to make brute forcing impractical. If you have to wait 7 days between train robberies instead of 24 hours, that’s a big hit to the business model. Maybe enough to make it impractical.
      - tomlockwood 5y ago
        Your analogy doesn't really help because they aren't just "delayed". Money is wasted on incarcerating them, they come in close contact with criminals, and it makes their ability to get a job, lower.
somesortofthing 5y ago
You're forgetting the cost of jailing them in the first place. Not only is there an upfront cost of $106k per year(assuming we're talking about CA)[1], that person is also not working(or paying taxes) or gaining any useful skills. What they're doing instead is hanging out in a population of other criminals and participating in a social order that incentivizes if not downright mandates behavior that in itself would be considered criminal in wider society. I don't think it's so far fetched to say that the cost society pays to incarcerate someone with the goal of preventing them from committing more crimes can exceed the cost of the crimes themselves. Deterrence is the only possible way to justify these costs(And prisons do have nonzero use as a deterrent), but the current prison situation makes it clear that prison's RoI growth has some seriously diminishing returns that started at a funding level far lower than the current one. [1]https://lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost https://lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost

neither_color 5y ago

What is the alternative though? Societal interventions are a slow, months to years long process to an acute problem. I'm sure most criminals can be reformed through years of education, therapy and trauma healing but you can't deny that lax sentencing and lax enforcement contribute to opportunistic crime sprees like organized retail theft mobs and train robberies. Nobody needs to rob trains to eat, in America, as you put it.

tomlockwood 5y ago
> Nobody needs to rob trains to eat, in America, as you put it. They don't? That's not what I've heard. https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america
- creato 5y ago
  My understanding is that most of the people struggling to feed themselves make too much money to qualify for assistance, but too little to reliably feed themselves. Obviously, those people aren't making too much money (as documented by the IRS and/or banks) by robbing trains.
- refurb 5y ago
  When they have to invent a new term "food insecurity" and your country leads the world in obesity, you know people aren't going hungry in the normal sense of the word.
  - tomlockwood 5y ago
    Do you feel like the obese people are robbing these trains?
    - refurb 5y ago
      Seen photos? Yes, some of them are obese. What’s your point?

efitz 5y ago

Prosecuting crime does not eliminate crime; it minimizes crime. For the criminal justice system to deter crime, there has to be a reasonable chance of getting caught and punished, and the punishment must significantly exceed the benefit that obtained from the crime.

tomlockwood 5y ago
That's not what I've heard: https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/business-law/do-harsher-punishments-deter-crime https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/business-law/do-harsher-pu...
- berberous 5y ago
  Some of this is really just common sense. I believe the following: - If murder were not prosecuted, or punished by only a day in jail, murder rates would increase. It would effectively be legal. - Changing the sentence on murder from 10 years to life, however, would be unlikely to have any marginal deterrent effect. Stated more generally, I think many sentences in this country are horrifically long, and dramatically shortening them would not increase crime. But if you decrease them to a level where they are de minimis compared to the benefit of the crime, or just not prosecuted at all, I don’t need a study to tell me crime will increase. It is human nature.
  - tomlockwood 5y ago
    I've heard incorrect folk wisdom parroted as if it were true, before, so I'll wait for the study. Plenty of people claim they have a grasp on common sense, and many of them disagree.
    - efitz 5y ago
      Do you eat when you’re hungry and put on a raincoat outside when it’s raining, or do you wait for a study?
      - 5y ago

amznthrowaway12 5y ago

Recidivism for most crimes is high. Putting criminals in prison prevents them from committing more crimes.

Osmose 5y ago
I mean, no, there's lots of crimes you can commit in jail that can lead you to an even worse sentence. But also recidivism isn't simply some moral badness in a person, there's tons of factors that feed into it, including the community around the person being released, their ability to provide with a record, etc.
thebigman433 5y ago
But does prison also cause significant other issues, leading to that recidivism?
azinman2 5y ago
And not putting criminals in jail allows them to commit more crimes.

Stupulous 5y ago

Lacking crime data for the counterfactual world where crime wasn't prosecuted, I don't think you can make this assertion. Not to say that you're wrong (and I've seen evidence that you're right), but that you can't just eyeball our crime rate and come to any conclusion. It is counterintuitive to suggest that punishments have an insignificant effect on crime rates. It doesn't pass the 'me' test- even my idealized version of myself would steal if there were no consequences, though it's tricky to judge whether I'd be more or less inclined with variable consequences. Again, doesn't mean it's not true, just sets the bar for evidence a little higher.

tomlockwood 5y ago
Well, its similarly frustrating to me that the snap response to crime in America still seems to be, more enforcement. Clearly, the crime rate is the result of a multi-faceted set of variables. Why press the "harsher punishment" button? Also if an idealized version of yourself would still steal, perhaps that is also multi-faceted, and requires some other change to society other than the justice system. What do you think you'd steal? I think I'd steal too - mostly from large corporations, because I don't really care if Disney or Walmart profits go down.
- toast0 5y ago
  > Clearly, the crime rate is the result of a multi-faceted set of variables. Why press the "harsher punishment" button? Because people are perceiving a higher rate of visible crimes within a reasonably short time after the "reduce punishment" button was pushed. Of course, going back to the old ways without any real progress on anything else is going to put us back to the old problems. (Costs of incarceration are high, concerns about fairness, concerns about conditions, etc) > I think I'd steal too - mostly from large corporations, because I don't really care if Disney or Walmart profits go down. I don't necessarily care about their profits per se, but if Walmart (or maybe a chain store you dislike less) leaves my community because of theft, that makes my life harder.
  - tomlockwood 5y ago