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I'm generally against punishment as a whole, as I don't think it works generally, but considering how little responsibility SBF has taken for stealing all this

I'm generally against punishment as a whole, as I don't think it works generally, but considering how little responsibility SBF has taken for stealing all this money I think there's a reasonable chance that he'll just turn around and do the same scam again if he's not thrown in jail, or at the very least having the SEC monitoring every single thing he does. Granted, I'm a victim of the Gemini Earn unregistered security scam [1], and so maybe I cannot be an impartial judge here, but SBF is kind of the only non-violent offender that I can think of right now that I honestly feel should be locked up and throw away the key. [1] Before you give me a lecture about how I should have known better and how you'd never fall for such a scam and how Gemini's claims of FDIC insurance would never fool anyone smart, just rest assured I've heard it from the denizens of HN and my peers. I know I was stupid to have done anything with cryptocurrency, and even more stupid to think that Gemini wasn't misleading people about their Gemini Earn program. Just to be clear though, it's not my accusation to called Gemini Earn an unregistered security, it's the SEC's (https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-7 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-7).

knorker 3y ago
Punishment, deterrence for others, and deterrence for the individual themselves, are three important parts of why the state has consequences for bad deeds. The US is pretty punishment-heavy. As a non-US person it even looks sadistic. It's "now I got you, you son of a bitch" social game from "Games People Play". Since you're against "punishment as a whole", I assume you by "punishment" mean "I want them to suffer for what they did"? Giving more than (say) 20 years to most 20-year-old murderer is no different from 120, from either deterrence perspective. When they're 40 they'll be a different person. 120 years of terrible prison conditions does not make anyone better off, compared to 20. Except for the victim's "sense of justice". But man, 20 years? No year more than that will bring your loved one back. Anyway, I agree that we need both types of deterrence for SBF. Otherwise what's to stop people counting on getting "only" 10 years. Steal a billion dollars, hide it in cryptocurrencies, and when you get out of prison you're older, sure, but you are super rich. We need deterrence from him doing it again. And we need deterrence for everyone like him, and everyone who would be remotely involved him people like him. People need to know that if you help this kind of scam, there are dire consequences. Which is why his parents should face the full weight of the harm they caused, to show that it will all be taken away. But I don't see that as "punishment". Not in the way I think you mean it.
- matt004 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - tigeroil 3y ago
    In what sense doesn't it work though? Because from a re-offending rate it unequivocally does work. In terms of preventing new crimes from being committed, I think the honest answer is "it depends". I think early intervention and preventing crime in the first place is always going to beat punishing people for crimes after the fact.
  - bumby 3y ago
    I don't think this type of dichotomy of thinking is helpful. Given that the research seems to suggest that "heavy punitive sentencing" doesn't reduce crime, I think the take away is that human behavior is difficult to change.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    What? Citation is definitely needed for that claim about Scandinavia. Restorative justice may not "work" for every single person in every single situation but neither does punitive sentencing. If you look at recidivism for whether it "works" then restorative justice performs way better in the majority of cases. Then we should consider the moral/ethical correctness of what the justice system is and what it should do.
  - knorker 3y ago
    But then it's not punishment for punishment's sake, but for deterrence's sake. I read the comment as talking about retribution, to make the victim feel good, not about deterrence. Are you saying you have data to show that 20 years for murder has a different deterrent effect than 120 years for murder?
- nineplay 3y ago
  > When they're 40 they'll be a different person. Is there any evidence of that? I say this with sympathy as I suspect some number of violent individuals have as-yet-undetected genetic abnormalities that would make them 'blameless' for their actions if we could track it down. However that wouldn't change their behavior. My son has a non-violent known genetic abnormality and in 20/40/60 years his behavior wouldn't change unless some effective treatment is found. So I think there needs to be some realism injected into this discussion. There are people I would not want as next door neighbors even after they've served a long prison sentence.
monero-xmr 3y ago
You are against the concept of punishment as a whole? Or just for financial crimes? I don’t think without the threat of jail - which is society taking away your time - some violent people would avoid crime.
- hypeit 3y ago
  The threat of punishment doesn't stop people from committing violent crime. Even if you totally eliminated the threat of prison, the actual threat of committing violent crime is that someone will retaliate/defend themselves against you. If you're willing to put your life on the line to rob someone, whether or not you might get put in jail isn't even going to register. Non-violent and financial crime is a different story. SBF should go to prison for life and maybe that would dissuade others from trying to pull of scams of this scale. Every politician who accepted money from SBF should also go to prison if they don't return 100% of the money given to them.
  - gmerc 3y ago
    That’s an awfully certain statement. I don’t know man, it seem likely that some people will be dissuaded from pursuing non passion driven violent crime by appropriate risk of punishment. Sounds like a perfect solution fallacy.
    - hypeit 3y ago
      It's not a perfect solution but it's also not believable that what's stopping people from committing violence is the law and not the violence itself. If you're willing to commit premeditated violence, you're already far beyond the influence of the law. If someone carjacks a car they are willing to accept the risk that the person they're robbing may have a gun. They are literally willing to put their life at risk, something only someone with nothing to lose would do. Do think maybe getting caught by the police and spending 10 years in prison is as big of a threat to this person as being shot and killed (a risk they've already decided to take)?
      - 3y ago
simplicio 3y ago
"we shouldn't lock people up for non-violent crimes except for ones similar to the one I was a victim of" seems like kind of a..limited view? I don't think there's anything particular about SBF that makes him more likely to re-offend (And even if he wanted to, one would hope he'd have a hard time convincing folks to hand over another 8 billion for him to embezzle a second time). Which isn't to say that I don't think he should go to jail (he definitely should!), just that I don't think he's any more jail worthy then people who engage in other forms of non-violent theft and/or fraud.
- gmerc 3y ago
  Can you say this with a straight face while seeing so many people over and over pay Donald Trumps legal fees by donating to the latest cause.
  - tombert 3y ago
    I'm not a fan of Donald Trump at all, but he's never actually been convicted of fraud has he? I'm not disputing that he's committed fraud, but I think that a lot of his followers can do a lot of mental gymnastics and convince themselves that he never actually did anything illegal, in no small part because he's never directly been convicted.
    - hermanradtke 3y ago
      > he's never actually been convicted of fraud has he? His corporation was given the death penalty for wildly overstating the value of assets.
    - hotpotamus 3y ago
      Isn't he banned from operating a nonprofit in New York now, and didn't Trump University get a civil judgement (I'm aware you might not call that a fraud conviction) that disbanded it? That's just from memory - if not technically a criminal, he's quite certifiably crooked, but people will still throw money at him, and I'll never understand people. The other figure that comes to mind is Adam Nuemann (and I'm not alleging anything criminal against him), but apparently he just has a personality that draws VCs with dumptrucks full of money like moths to a flame. Clearly people just have tons of money they don't need these days.
jjtheblunt 3y ago
Do you think punishment is an ineffective deterrent?
- tombert 3y ago
  I do not think punishment is a good deterrent, no; I think the data more or less says that as well. If you look at Scandinavia, where they generally have a much higher emphasis on reform instead of "punishment for punishment's sake", and they also have a substantially lower recidivism rate compared to the US. Now obviously, I'll fully acknowledge that it's not completely apples to apples; there almost certainly a million differences between the US and Scandinavia that contribute to differences in crime statistics, but I think it does demonstrate that reducing emphasis on punishment doesn't turn the world into this post apocalyptic dystopia.
  - throttlebody 3y ago
    You better have another look a the Swedish gang murder rate, it's staggering (in Swedish terms). The world is changing.....
    - InitialLastName 3y ago
      From [0]: > More than 60 people died in shootings last year in Sweden, the highest figure on record. This may be a lot of people for Sweden (~0.5 death per ~100K people); it's not a lot of people in the general sense. Per [1], 19,000 people died from gun homicides in the US in the same year (5 per 100K people). Not exactly a sign that Sweden's system is failing relative to the US. [0] https://apnews.com/article/sweden-shooting-explosion-deadliest-9fd423ed2aaec4ecff2c885f8c48ed55 https://apnews.com/article/sweden-shooting-explosion-deadlie... [1] https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/cdc-provisional-data-gun-suicides-reach-all-time-high-in-2022-gun-homicides-down-slightly-from-2021 https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/cdc-provisional-data-gun-s...
      - Kiro 3y ago
        I can assure you that every single Swede agrees that it's failing. People are horrified at what's happening. Anyway, bringing up Scandinavia as one unit doesn't work anymore when there's such a big difference between Sweden and for example Norway where restorative justice is still successful.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
Consider adding corruption and large-scale fraud to your list. Punishment has three purposes: deterrence, incapacitation and retribution. The first two are simple. The last seems irrational. Yet if you ignore it, you wind up with people executing a parallel system of justice (i.e. taking matters into their own hands) and generally losing trust in society. Within the category of crimes that maximise the need for that last element, it’s wide-scale actions that harm a lot of people, visibly, done by a member of or someone perceived to be proximate to the elite.
- ajkjk 3y ago
  aside: I see "retribution" on these lists a lot and usually these days it's disgarded. IMO it's discarded prematurely. The sort of retribution that is like "X hurt me, so punish them" is the one everybody seems to no longer believe in, and that's fine. But there is another sense of retribution that I think is very valuable, which is "maintaining the status quo that people who commit crimes are punished for them". It's not personal retribution but more of a "belief that the system will handle retribution", and it is important because it helps us believe that there is a legitimate criminal justice system that takes care of justice for us and which we can delegate justice to. You alluded to this in your comment when you said "losing trust in society". Mostly I just want to observe that to me it feels like it deserves a separate bullet-point instead of being lumped in with "retribution".
  - bluefishinit 3y ago
    I would rather have a belief that the system will find the root causes of crime and take actions to fix them then believe the system will punish those who break the rules. Punishment causes damage to society beyond just the individual being punished. Criminals have jobs, families and relationships with people who haven't broken the law. Punishment should be used sparingly as the cost to all of society is high. I also believe we'd have lower crime if the massive budgets currently being used on police would be instead used to improve the health and welfare of high crime communities.
    - 3y ago
oooyay 3y ago
IANAL but I'm curious if intent is the deciding factor. Maddoff got 150 years because he knowingly operated a criminal enterprise and admitted to the whole thing eventually. His sons even testified against him when they found out. Maddoff went to great extents to construct his criminal enterprise, operating a small boiler room out of the front office. If prosecutors can show that actual malice and intent were part of his motive then logic would follow he'd get a Maddoff-like sentence. If he's just the worlds biggest bumbling idiot that people put too much faith and money in then it'd be lesser. I'm not quite caught up to when SBF knew he'd started a criminal enterprise versus when he was making reckless decisions.

knorker 3y ago

Punishment, deterrence for others, and deterrence for the individual themselves, are three important parts of why the state has consequences for bad deeds. The US is pretty punishment-heavy. As a non-US person it even looks sadistic. It's "now I got you, you son of a bitch" social game from "Games People Play". Since you're against "punishment as a whole", I assume you by "punishment" mean "I want them to suffer for what they did"? Giving more than (say) 20 years to most 20-year-old murderer is no different from 120, from either deterrence perspective. When they're 40 they'll be a different person. 120 years of terrible prison conditions does not make anyone better off, compared to 20. Except for the victim's "sense of justice". But man, 20 years? No year more than that will bring your loved one back. Anyway, I agree that we need both types of deterrence for SBF. Otherwise what's to stop people counting on getting "only" 10 years. Steal a billion dollars, hide it in cryptocurrencies, and when you get out of prison you're older, sure, but you are super rich. We need deterrence from him doing it again. And we need deterrence for everyone like him, and everyone who would be remotely involved him people like him. People need to know that if you help this kind of scam, there are dire consequences. Which is why his parents should face the full weight of the harm they caused, to show that it will all be taken away. But I don't see that as "punishment". Not in the way I think you mean it.

matt004 3y ago
[flagged]
- tigeroil 3y ago
  In what sense doesn't it work though? Because from a re-offending rate it unequivocally does work. In terms of preventing new crimes from being committed, I think the honest answer is "it depends". I think early intervention and preventing crime in the first place is always going to beat punishing people for crimes after the fact.
- bumby 3y ago
  I don't think this type of dichotomy of thinking is helpful. Given that the research seems to suggest that "heavy punitive sentencing" doesn't reduce crime, I think the take away is that human behavior is difficult to change.
- freedomben 3y ago
  What? Citation is definitely needed for that claim about Scandinavia. Restorative justice may not "work" for every single person in every single situation but neither does punitive sentencing. If you look at recidivism for whether it "works" then restorative justice performs way better in the majority of cases. Then we should consider the moral/ethical correctness of what the justice system is and what it should do.
- knorker 3y ago
  But then it's not punishment for punishment's sake, but for deterrence's sake. I read the comment as talking about retribution, to make the victim feel good, not about deterrence. Are you saying you have data to show that 20 years for murder has a different deterrent effect than 120 years for murder?
nineplay 3y ago
> When they're 40 they'll be a different person. Is there any evidence of that? I say this with sympathy as I suspect some number of violent individuals have as-yet-undetected genetic abnormalities that would make them 'blameless' for their actions if we could track it down. However that wouldn't change their behavior. My son has a non-violent known genetic abnormality and in 20/40/60 years his behavior wouldn't change unless some effective treatment is found. So I think there needs to be some realism injected into this discussion. There are people I would not want as next door neighbors even after they've served a long prison sentence.

monero-xmr 3y ago

You are against the concept of punishment as a whole? Or just for financial crimes? I don’t think without the threat of jail - which is society taking away your time - some violent people would avoid crime.

hypeit 3y ago
The threat of punishment doesn't stop people from committing violent crime. Even if you totally eliminated the threat of prison, the actual threat of committing violent crime is that someone will retaliate/defend themselves against you. If you're willing to put your life on the line to rob someone, whether or not you might get put in jail isn't even going to register. Non-violent and financial crime is a different story. SBF should go to prison for life and maybe that would dissuade others from trying to pull of scams of this scale. Every politician who accepted money from SBF should also go to prison if they don't return 100% of the money given to them.
- gmerc 3y ago
  That’s an awfully certain statement. I don’t know man, it seem likely that some people will be dissuaded from pursuing non passion driven violent crime by appropriate risk of punishment. Sounds like a perfect solution fallacy.
  - hypeit 3y ago
    It's not a perfect solution but it's also not believable that what's stopping people from committing violence is the law and not the violence itself. If you're willing to commit premeditated violence, you're already far beyond the influence of the law. If someone carjacks a car they are willing to accept the risk that the person they're robbing may have a gun. They are literally willing to put their life at risk, something only someone with nothing to lose would do. Do think maybe getting caught by the police and spending 10 years in prison is as big of a threat to this person as being shot and killed (a risk they've already decided to take)?
    - 3y ago

simplicio 3y ago

"we shouldn't lock people up for non-violent crimes except for ones similar to the one I was a victim of" seems like kind of a..limited view? I don't think there's anything particular about SBF that makes him more likely to re-offend (And even if he wanted to, one would hope he'd have a hard time convincing folks to hand over another 8 billion for him to embezzle a second time). Which isn't to say that I don't think he should go to jail (he definitely should!), just that I don't think he's any more jail worthy then people who engage in other forms of non-violent theft and/or fraud.

gmerc 3y ago
Can you say this with a straight face while seeing so many people over and over pay Donald Trumps legal fees by donating to the latest cause.
- tombert 3y ago
  I'm not a fan of Donald Trump at all, but he's never actually been convicted of fraud has he? I'm not disputing that he's committed fraud, but I think that a lot of his followers can do a lot of mental gymnastics and convince themselves that he never actually did anything illegal, in no small part because he's never directly been convicted.
  - hermanradtke 3y ago
    > he's never actually been convicted of fraud has he? His corporation was given the death penalty for wildly overstating the value of assets.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    Isn't he banned from operating a nonprofit in New York now, and didn't Trump University get a civil judgement (I'm aware you might not call that a fraud conviction) that disbanded it? That's just from memory - if not technically a criminal, he's quite certifiably crooked, but people will still throw money at him, and I'll never understand people. The other figure that comes to mind is Adam Nuemann (and I'm not alleging anything criminal against him), but apparently he just has a personality that draws VCs with dumptrucks full of money like moths to a flame. Clearly people just have tons of money they don't need these days.

jjtheblunt 3y ago

Do you think punishment is an ineffective deterrent?

tombert 3y ago
I do not think punishment is a good deterrent, no; I think the data more or less says that as well. If you look at Scandinavia, where they generally have a much higher emphasis on reform instead of "punishment for punishment's sake", and they also have a substantially lower recidivism rate compared to the US. Now obviously, I'll fully acknowledge that it's not completely apples to apples; there almost certainly a million differences between the US and Scandinavia that contribute to differences in crime statistics, but I think it does demonstrate that reducing emphasis on punishment doesn't turn the world into this post apocalyptic dystopia.
- throttlebody 3y ago
  You better have another look a the Swedish gang murder rate, it's staggering (in Swedish terms). The world is changing.....
  - InitialLastName 3y ago
    From [0]: > More than 60 people died in shootings last year in Sweden, the highest figure on record. This may be a lot of people for Sweden (~0.5 death per ~100K people); it's not a lot of people in the general sense. Per [1], 19,000 people died from gun homicides in the US in the same year (5 per 100K people). Not exactly a sign that Sweden's system is failing relative to the US. [0] https://apnews.com/article/sweden-shooting-explosion-deadliest-9fd423ed2aaec4ecff2c885f8c48ed55 https://apnews.com/article/sweden-shooting-explosion-deadlie... [1] https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/cdc-provisional-data-gun-suicides-reach-all-time-high-in-2022-gun-homicides-down-slightly-from-2021 https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/cdc-provisional-data-gun-s...
    - Kiro 3y ago
      I can assure you that every single Swede agrees that it's failing. People are horrified at what's happening. Anyway, bringing up Scandinavia as one unit doesn't work anymore when there's such a big difference between Sweden and for example Norway where restorative justice is still successful.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

Consider adding corruption and large-scale fraud to your list. Punishment has three purposes: deterrence, incapacitation and retribution. The first two are simple. The last seems irrational. Yet if you ignore it, you wind up with people executing a parallel system of justice (i.e. taking matters into their own hands) and generally losing trust in society. Within the category of crimes that maximise the need for that last element, it’s wide-scale actions that harm a lot of people, visibly, done by a member of or someone perceived to be proximate to the elite.

ajkjk 3y ago
aside: I see "retribution" on these lists a lot and usually these days it's disgarded. IMO it's discarded prematurely. The sort of retribution that is like "X hurt me, so punish them" is the one everybody seems to no longer believe in, and that's fine. But there is another sense of retribution that I think is very valuable, which is "maintaining the status quo that people who commit crimes are punished for them". It's not personal retribution but more of a "belief that the system will handle retribution", and it is important because it helps us believe that there is a legitimate criminal justice system that takes care of justice for us and which we can delegate justice to. You alluded to this in your comment when you said "losing trust in society". Mostly I just want to observe that to me it feels like it deserves a separate bullet-point instead of being lumped in with "retribution".
- bluefishinit 3y ago
  I would rather have a belief that the system will find the root causes of crime and take actions to fix them then believe the system will punish those who break the rules. Punishment causes damage to society beyond just the individual being punished. Criminals have jobs, families and relationships with people who haven't broken the law. Punishment should be used sparingly as the cost to all of society is high. I also believe we'd have lower crime if the massive budgets currently being used on police would be instead used to improve the health and welfare of high crime communities.
  - 3y ago

oooyay 3y ago

IANAL but I'm curious if intent is the deciding factor. Maddoff got 150 years because he knowingly operated a criminal enterprise and admitted to the whole thing eventually. His sons even testified against him when they found out. Maddoff went to great extents to construct his criminal enterprise, operating a small boiler room out of the front office. If prosecutors can show that actual malice and intent were part of his motive then logic would follow he'd get a Maddoff-like sentence. If he's just the worlds biggest bumbling idiot that people put too much faith and money in then it'd be lesser. I'm not quite caught up to when SBF knew he'd started a criminal enterprise versus when he was making reckless decisions.