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If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison, basically regardles

If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison, basically regardless of the state. Lets say three years to be conservative on this? Sam Bankman Fried stole billions of dollars [1], probably often around $1000 at a time from tens of thousands of people. If going with my logic, he should be getting a lot longer than 25 years, upwards of hundreds or thousands of years. Obviously, it's not a linear relationship, the crime was non-violent, first-time-offender, etc. I'm just saying that 25 years seems pretty fair to me considering the magnitude of the crime. I am one of the victims (well, of Gemini Earn anyway), and I think if I were given the choice, I'd probably sentence him to 20-25 years. [1] Or at least so grossly mismanaged that there's no real purpose in drawing a distinction.

shuckles 3y ago
> If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison Almost definitely not, especially if it was your first crime. It’s pretty unlikely you’d even be caught. Severity of the punishment has extremely diminishing returns on discouraging future crimes. The only other impetus for a longer sentence is if you think the defendant is likely to commit more crimes when released. Besides that, longer sentences are hard to justify.
- tombert 3y ago
  I do think that Sam Bankman Fried will commit more fraud the second he is able to. He hasn't shown any remorse, and he just blames everyone else for this mess even when there's dead-to-rights evidence.
lijok 3y ago
Why do you think SBF requires 20-25 years to rehabilitate?
- throwup238 3y ago
  We don’t rehabilitate in this country.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    "Won't someone please think of the poor criminals" is definitely a tough sell in the US.
    - lo_zamoyski 3y ago
      Compassion for criminals who get what they deserve is false compassion. The victim is the proper object of compassion. The three purposes of punishment are retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. Him getting 25 years isn't undeserved.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- golergka 3y ago
  Why do you think he will ever rehabilitate? Prison is not and shouldn't be about rehabilitation. It's society that requires to be less exposed to SBF, by 20-25 years.
  - lijok 3y ago
    He's a first-time non-violent offender. If that wasn't the case, I'd agree with you.
    - tonightstoast 3y ago
      First-time sentenced for crimes against 1000s of people.
    - tombert 3y ago
      Everyone keeps repeating "first time offender", but I think that term is kind of misleading. If I stole exactly one empty car exactly one time, then yes, I'd be a first time offender in the sense everyone thinks it. If I stole a thousand empty cars, and only got caught after the 999th, then sure, legally I'd be a "first time offender", but I would have still committed the crime a thousand times. This wasn't a one-time clerical error that he failed to report. This was an intentional bit of theft that kept going for years. It's really not a "first time offense", and I don't think it's fair to categorize it as such.
golergka 3y ago
Breaking and entering into someone's house and stealing their cash is very different from having an obligation to pay them out cash and not fulfilling it. While it may be the same amount of money, it's a radically different relationship between parties.
retrac 3y ago
Your logic is strange. With robbery, the primary crime is the violence (or para-violent threat), and not the theft. This is easy to demonstrate: the punishment for breaking into someone's home in many jurisdictions is essentially the same, even if you steal nothing.
- foobiekr 3y ago
  "the primary crime is the violence" citation needed
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    Was the sentence "this is easily demonstrated by..." not originally part of the post you're replying to?
liendolucas 3y ago
> Sam Bankman Fried stole billions of dollars [1], probably often around $1000 at a time from tens of thousands of people. If going with my logic, he should be getting a lot longer than 25 years, upwards of hundreds or thousands of years. Apparently that logic applied to Bernie Madoff. He got 150 years. How are these cases so similar and yet got radically different sentences?
- tombert 3y ago
  Even more, Madoff actually turned himself in. I doubt he was "remorseful", mostly just realizing how insolvent he was, but it demonstrates at least some accountability on his end.
- chollida1 3y ago
  > How are these cases so similar and yet got radically different sentences? Partially in that SBF's victims will get "100%" back, based on the USD value of their holdings at the time. Madoff victims, especially the wealthily got a large haircut on their holdings and clawbacks on money they had taken out as far as 5 years back from sentencing. Also Maddoff's fraud went on for 15+ years, SBF's was maybe a year to 18 months at the most? These two cases are so widely different that you can't really compare them except at a superficial level, ie they were both fraud, and that's about where the similarities end.
  - liendolucas 3y ago
    > These two cases are so widely different that you can't really compare them except at a superficial level, ie they were both fraud, and that's about where the similarities end. I have to disagree on that. Mostly because the order of magnitude of both scams is the same (billions) and both destroyed how many lives? And sure, maybe FTX victims will get 100% back, but when? How long until you see that money back?
- adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
  a lot of the answer is that Madoff wasn't trying for 25 years. When you're 71, they're both a life sentence.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
You’ve identified one of the primary failures of the courts. As the number of victims raises the punishment for each victim decreases in our judicial system. Victim count is an aggravating factor and should be a multiple when calculating punishment. Instead we have a system that pretends to grant justice but is an actuality a tool of injustice and repression wielded by people whose entire perspective can be effectively reduced to might makes right. Despite our toys and complicated rhetoric we’re still just violent animals holding those with the least autonomy the most accountable and those with the most autonomy can escape the consequences of their violence indefinitely. A mass revolt or protest of the judicial system in the next generation would not surprise me in the least.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  Does this mean we would stop charging people with victimless crimes? If so, I'm all for it.
thsksbd 3y ago
"If I broke into a person's house and stole" The owners, the police, the prosecutor and the jury would be far more interested in the breaking and entry charge than the $1000. In fact, in every state of the Union, if you're facing me whilst committing the act of trespassing inside my home, I can legally punch a hole through your torso with a 9mm.
- mgiampapa 3y ago
  Many states (15) have a duty to retreat, not everywhere is a stand your ground state (35 states). It's complicated, but most of the time in your home there is an exception.
  - Wytwwww 3y ago
    According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_retreat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_retreat in all of those states the duty to retreat doesn't apply if in your home (or workplace)
  - TeaBrain 3y ago
    They specifically mentioned a scenario where someone is trespassing into the home. There isn't a single state that has a duty to retreat requirement that pertains to home invaders.
  - thsksbd 3y ago
    I specified that the perp is both facing me and in my home (as opposed to my possibly 1000 acre lot - I wish). This scenario is legitimate self defense in all 50 states (unlike some states in Europe)
dist-epoch 3y ago
[flagged]
pwillia7 3y ago
They don't stack like that, there is a curve with points and considerations like if it's your first time offending and the malice involved. Those points correlate to years. Judges don't have to follow the points, but they almost always do and if they don't, may have to explain it or have their case messed with in appeals
Ctyra 3y ago
> If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison, basically regardless of the state. Lets say three years to be conservative on this? We are seeing this kind of crime on a regular basis in our neighborhood. The cops have pretty much given up. They also mentioned that even if they make an arrest, the bail is set so low, these guys would be out quickly. Overall, my impression is there is zero deterrence for these kind of crimes here (a pretty affluent neighborhood in one of the tech cities in the west coast)

shuckles 3y ago

> If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison Almost definitely not, especially if it was your first crime. It’s pretty unlikely you’d even be caught. Severity of the punishment has extremely diminishing returns on discouraging future crimes. The only other impetus for a longer sentence is if you think the defendant is likely to commit more crimes when released. Besides that, longer sentences are hard to justify.

tombert 3y ago
I do think that Sam Bankman Fried will commit more fraud the second he is able to. He hasn't shown any remorse, and he just blames everyone else for this mess even when there's dead-to-rights evidence.

lijok 3y ago

Why do you think SBF requires 20-25 years to rehabilitate?

throwup238 3y ago
We don’t rehabilitate in this country.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  "Won't someone please think of the poor criminals" is definitely a tough sell in the US.
  - lo_zamoyski 3y ago
    Compassion for criminals who get what they deserve is false compassion. The victim is the proper object of compassion. The three purposes of punishment are retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. Him getting 25 years isn't undeserved.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
golergka 3y ago
Why do you think he will ever rehabilitate? Prison is not and shouldn't be about rehabilitation. It's society that requires to be less exposed to SBF, by 20-25 years.
- lijok 3y ago
  He's a first-time non-violent offender. If that wasn't the case, I'd agree with you.
  - tonightstoast 3y ago
    First-time sentenced for crimes against 1000s of people.
  - tombert 3y ago
    Everyone keeps repeating "first time offender", but I think that term is kind of misleading. If I stole exactly one empty car exactly one time, then yes, I'd be a first time offender in the sense everyone thinks it. If I stole a thousand empty cars, and only got caught after the 999th, then sure, legally I'd be a "first time offender", but I would have still committed the crime a thousand times. This wasn't a one-time clerical error that he failed to report. This was an intentional bit of theft that kept going for years. It's really not a "first time offense", and I don't think it's fair to categorize it as such.

golergka 3y ago

Breaking and entering into someone's house and stealing their cash is very different from having an obligation to pay them out cash and not fulfilling it. While it may be the same amount of money, it's a radically different relationship between parties.

retrac 3y ago

Your logic is strange. With robbery, the primary crime is the violence (or para-violent threat), and not the theft. This is easy to demonstrate: the punishment for breaking into someone's home in many jurisdictions is essentially the same, even if you steal nothing.

foobiekr 3y ago
"the primary crime is the violence" citation needed
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- xyzelement 3y ago
  Was the sentence "this is easily demonstrated by..." not originally part of the post you're replying to?

liendolucas 3y ago

> Sam Bankman Fried stole billions of dollars [1], probably often around $1000 at a time from tens of thousands of people. If going with my logic, he should be getting a lot longer than 25 years, upwards of hundreds or thousands of years. Apparently that logic applied to Bernie Madoff. He got 150 years. How are these cases so similar and yet got radically different sentences?

tombert 3y ago
Even more, Madoff actually turned himself in. I doubt he was "remorseful", mostly just realizing how insolvent he was, but it demonstrates at least some accountability on his end.
chollida1 3y ago
> How are these cases so similar and yet got radically different sentences? Partially in that SBF's victims will get "100%" back, based on the USD value of their holdings at the time. Madoff victims, especially the wealthily got a large haircut on their holdings and clawbacks on money they had taken out as far as 5 years back from sentencing. Also Maddoff's fraud went on for 15+ years, SBF's was maybe a year to 18 months at the most? These two cases are so widely different that you can't really compare them except at a superficial level, ie they were both fraud, and that's about where the similarities end.
- liendolucas 3y ago
  > These two cases are so widely different that you can't really compare them except at a superficial level, ie they were both fraud, and that's about where the similarities end. I have to disagree on that. Mostly because the order of magnitude of both scams is the same (billions) and both destroyed how many lives? And sure, maybe FTX victims will get 100% back, but when? How long until you see that money back?
adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
a lot of the answer is that Madoff wasn't trying for 25 years. When you're 71, they're both a life sentence.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago

You’ve identified one of the primary failures of the courts. As the number of victims raises the punishment for each victim decreases in our judicial system. Victim count is an aggravating factor and should be a multiple when calculating punishment. Instead we have a system that pretends to grant justice but is an actuality a tool of injustice and repression wielded by people whose entire perspective can be effectively reduced to might makes right. Despite our toys and complicated rhetoric we’re still just violent animals holding those with the least autonomy the most accountable and those with the most autonomy can escape the consequences of their violence indefinitely. A mass revolt or protest of the judicial system in the next generation would not surprise me in the least.

_heimdall 3y ago
Does this mean we would stop charging people with victimless crimes? If so, I'm all for it.

thsksbd 3y ago

"If I broke into a person's house and stole" The owners, the police, the prosecutor and the jury would be far more interested in the breaking and entry charge than the $1000. In fact, in every state of the Union, if you're facing me whilst committing the act of trespassing inside my home, I can legally punch a hole through your torso with a 9mm.

mgiampapa 3y ago
Many states (15) have a duty to retreat, not everywhere is a stand your ground state (35 states). It's complicated, but most of the time in your home there is an exception.
- Wytwwww 3y ago
  According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_retreat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_retreat in all of those states the duty to retreat doesn't apply if in your home (or workplace)
- TeaBrain 3y ago
  They specifically mentioned a scenario where someone is trespassing into the home. There isn't a single state that has a duty to retreat requirement that pertains to home invaders.
- thsksbd 3y ago
  I specified that the perp is both facing me and in my home (as opposed to my possibly 1000 acre lot - I wish). This scenario is legitimate self defense in all 50 states (unlike some states in Europe)

dist-epoch 3y ago

[flagged]

pwillia7 3y ago

They don't stack like that, there is a curve with points and considerations like if it's your first time offending and the malice involved. Those points correlate to years. Judges don't have to follow the points, but they almost always do and if they don't, may have to explain it or have their case messed with in appeals

Ctyra 3y ago

> If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison, basically regardless of the state. Lets say three years to be conservative on this? We are seeing this kind of crime on a regular basis in our neighborhood. The cops have pretty much given up. They also mentioned that even if they make an arrest, the bail is set so low, these guys would be out quickly. Overall, my impression is there is zero deterrence for these kind of crimes here (a pretty affluent neighborhood in one of the tech cities in the west coast)