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I agree that this is a more legitimate reason to put people in prison, but I think it needs to be very selective to be effective. Serial killers need to be take

by hypeit 3y ago

I agree that this is a more legitimate reason to put people in prison, but I think it needs to be very selective to be effective. Serial killers need to be taken out of circulation but drug offenders do not imo. Often you turn people into an even deeper life of crime after removing them from society, putting them in psychologically damaging situations and exposing them to intensified organized crime that exists in prison. Not to mention any collateral damage such as the offender's family who may now also suffer and be drawn more towards conditions that would breed crime.

mcpackieh 3y ago
With nonviolent crimes, such as drug abuse and financial crimes, I think the utility of incarceration depends on the degree to which the criminal might still be hurting society in nonviolent ways which would be prevented by incarceration. Maybe drug abuse is itself a victimless crime (I think there's room to disagree fwiw), in which case incapacitation via incarceration wouldn't be useful. But I think you can't make that claim about financial criminals like Bankman-Fried or Bernie Madoff; these were not victimless crimes. They victimized many people, therefore putting them in prison for the rest of their lives is a fairly straight forward way of making sure they'll never get the opportunity to do it again. > Not to mention any collateral damage such as the offender's family who may now also suffer and be drawn more towards conditions that would breed crime. Particularly in the case of these two men, the damage to the offenders family is completely irrelevant; their families are wealthy and are probably beneficiaries of the crimes anyway, so screw their feelings. And it's not like Bankman-Fried has a young son that will grow up to be a criminal because his daddy is in prison. Elizabeth Holmes has some kids but I'm confident they'll be fine with their mother in prison; their father's family has plenty of resources to raise them properly. And what of the children of the victims of white collar crime, who will grow up poorer because their parents were scammed? This 'family impact' angle of objection to imprisonment for white collar crimes isn't very persuasive.
- hypeit 3y ago
  I agree, if you see up thread I said SBF should go to prison for life.
- kosievdmerwe 3y ago
  I'm also starting to think that people underplay the devastation financial crimes cause relative to physical violence. People in a very real sense "eat money". If you steal someone's life savings you've harmed them way worse than just giving them a beating. And investment fraudsters tend to also have a lot of victims. That's never mind the physical harm that results from the stress of losing your life savings, including substance abuse and in extreme cases suicide.
SoftTalker 3y ago
Fundamentally if you're going to have laws, and for the laws to mean anything, there has to be a consequence for violating them. There are maybe three ways to do this: financial penalties (fines), community service or some other sort of forced labor/obligations, or incarceration. If you're not willing to do these things, you should just do away with the law in question. Otherwise you reduce the respect and confidence people have for that law, and by extension all law.

by hypeit 3y ago

mcpackieh 3y ago

With nonviolent crimes, such as drug abuse and financial crimes, I think the utility of incarceration depends on the degree to which the criminal might still be hurting society in nonviolent ways which would be prevented by incarceration. Maybe drug abuse is itself a victimless crime (I think there's room to disagree fwiw), in which case incapacitation via incarceration wouldn't be useful. But I think you can't make that claim about financial criminals like Bankman-Fried or Bernie Madoff; these were not victimless crimes. They victimized many people, therefore putting them in prison for the rest of their lives is a fairly straight forward way of making sure they'll never get the opportunity to do it again. > Not to mention any collateral damage such as the offender's family who may now also suffer and be drawn more towards conditions that would breed crime. Particularly in the case of these two men, the damage to the offenders family is completely irrelevant; their families are wealthy and are probably beneficiaries of the crimes anyway, so screw their feelings. And it's not like Bankman-Fried has a young son that will grow up to be a criminal because his daddy is in prison. Elizabeth Holmes has some kids but I'm confident they'll be fine with their mother in prison; their father's family has plenty of resources to raise them properly. And what of the children of the victims of white collar crime, who will grow up poorer because their parents were scammed? This 'family impact' angle of objection to imprisonment for white collar crimes isn't very persuasive.

hypeit 3y ago
I agree, if you see up thread I said SBF should go to prison for life.
kosievdmerwe 3y ago
I'm also starting to think that people underplay the devastation financial crimes cause relative to physical violence. People in a very real sense "eat money". If you steal someone's life savings you've harmed them way worse than just giving them a beating. And investment fraudsters tend to also have a lot of victims. That's never mind the physical harm that results from the stress of losing your life savings, including substance abuse and in extreme cases suicide.

SoftTalker 3y ago

Fundamentally if you're going to have laws, and for the laws to mean anything, there has to be a consequence for violating them. There are maybe three ways to do this: financial penalties (fines), community service or some other sort of forced labor/obligations, or incarceration. If you're not willing to do these things, you should just do away with the law in question. Otherwise you reduce the respect and confidence people have for that law, and by extension all law.