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95% of US inmates are on plea deal, which means the prosecutor never had to prove the charges before the (potentially) criminal admitted it. It is unfair for th

95% of US inmates are on plea deal, which means the prosecutor never had to prove the charges before the (potentially) criminal admitted it. It is unfair for those who admitted the charges because they believed they couldn’t defend themselves further. So the Boeing trial being on plea deal would be on paar with that standard…

dfxm12 2y ago
Can you explain your line of thinking for saying this? Because to me, the standard for such a big company, getting so many public dollars, that is responsible for the safety of a ton of Americans (and more) should obviously be more strict (for at least those reasons) compared to an individual who can't afford a good lawyer who had just a little too much weed on them.
- philwelch 2y ago
  The largest share of convicted inmates in the US were convicted of violent crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, or assault. Simple marijuana possession makes up a tiny share. And less than half of the violent crimes committed in the US lead to a conviction.
  - underlipton 2y ago
    Couple of things: 1) Citation needed. Particularly if you're talking about federal inmates, state, or both. 2) It's disingenuous (re: primacy bias) to lead off with murder and rape, which account for a far smaller portion of "violent" crime than robbery (which I assume includes burglary, in which the victim and perpetrator don't make contact) and assault (which, again, does not require the victim and perpetrator to physically make contact (that's battery)). All of this is aside fact that an individual who allegedly commits a heinous act against another person or small group of people is in a completely different class from a large corporation whose products put millions at risk (and the executives and managers who sign off on those company's decisions). There is quite the destructive myopia behind the increasingly punitive (rather than rehabilitative) nature of incarceration for the former, when the latter get off so easy.
    - sitkack 2y ago
      Thank you for the call out. I'd say the Sackler's committed premeditated violent crime, "at scale". One could even argue that they would be eligible for the death penalty and yet they keep half the winnings.
    - runarberg 2y ago
      Here is the official statistic for federal inmates: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen... To summarize, 44% of current federal inmates are there for drug-charges. The second most category is weapons charges at 22%. So a good 2/3 of current federal inmates are there for non-violent crimes. Sex offense is third most common at 13% I’m sure many are there for illegal sex work or consumption rather than for sexual violence. A whopping 4.6% is in federal prison for immigrating (which isn’t even a crime; unless this category includes human trafficking, which I would call a violent crime). EDIT: As for all US prisoners, here is the data I found (see table 16 on page 29): 62% are there for violent crimes and 12.5% for drug charges. Note that many large states—such as California—don’t imprison for drug possession any more, and this table does not include sentences shorter than 1 year. This methodology of counting current prison population is biased for more serious crimes with longer sentencing, as most crimes have shorter sentencing but serious and especially violent crimes have longer sentencing and thus are over-represented among the current prison population at any one point in time. https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/p22st.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/p22st.pdf
      - philwelch 2y ago
        > Here is the official statistic for federal inmates Federal inmates are a tiny minority of inmates in the United States, because the vast majority of crimes are prosecuted at the state level. There are about 147,000 convicted federal inmates compared to over a million held in state prisons and 103,000 convicts held in local jails. > This methodology of counting current prison population is biased for more serious crimes with longer sentencing This strikes me as an attempt to move the goalposts, given that we're several comments deep into a thread which started with the claim that "95% of US inmates are on plea deal".
docmars 2y ago
I agree with you on principle, if the stat you shared is true. With regards to Boeing, I'm not sure that's relevant, given the numerous reports of poor maintenance and outright mid-flight failures and flaws caused as a result is sufficient evidence for some kind of wrongdoing on Boeing's part. For this case, given that plea deals are used to expedite the court process and result in a less harsh penalty as an incentive, it's the most advantageous thing for Boeing to do because there was probably no hope in defending a guiltless verdict.

dfxm12 2y ago

Can you explain your line of thinking for saying this? Because to me, the standard for such a big company, getting so many public dollars, that is responsible for the safety of a ton of Americans (and more) should obviously be more strict (for at least those reasons) compared to an individual who can't afford a good lawyer who had just a little too much weed on them.

philwelch 2y ago
The largest share of convicted inmates in the US were convicted of violent crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, or assault. Simple marijuana possession makes up a tiny share. And less than half of the violent crimes committed in the US lead to a conviction.
- underlipton 2y ago
  Couple of things: 1) Citation needed. Particularly if you're talking about federal inmates, state, or both. 2) It's disingenuous (re: primacy bias) to lead off with murder and rape, which account for a far smaller portion of "violent" crime than robbery (which I assume includes burglary, in which the victim and perpetrator don't make contact) and assault (which, again, does not require the victim and perpetrator to physically make contact (that's battery)). All of this is aside fact that an individual who allegedly commits a heinous act against another person or small group of people is in a completely different class from a large corporation whose products put millions at risk (and the executives and managers who sign off on those company's decisions). There is quite the destructive myopia behind the increasingly punitive (rather than rehabilitative) nature of incarceration for the former, when the latter get off so easy.
  - sitkack 2y ago
    Thank you for the call out. I'd say the Sackler's committed premeditated violent crime, "at scale". One could even argue that they would be eligible for the death penalty and yet they keep half the winnings.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    Here is the official statistic for federal inmates: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen... To summarize, 44% of current federal inmates are there for drug-charges. The second most category is weapons charges at 22%. So a good 2/3 of current federal inmates are there for non-violent crimes. Sex offense is third most common at 13% I’m sure many are there for illegal sex work or consumption rather than for sexual violence. A whopping 4.6% is in federal prison for immigrating (which isn’t even a crime; unless this category includes human trafficking, which I would call a violent crime). EDIT: As for all US prisoners, here is the data I found (see table 16 on page 29): 62% are there for violent crimes and 12.5% for drug charges. Note that many large states—such as California—don’t imprison for drug possession any more, and this table does not include sentences shorter than 1 year. This methodology of counting current prison population is biased for more serious crimes with longer sentencing, as most crimes have shorter sentencing but serious and especially violent crimes have longer sentencing and thus are over-represented among the current prison population at any one point in time. https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/p22st.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/p22st.pdf
    - philwelch 2y ago
      > Here is the official statistic for federal inmates Federal inmates are a tiny minority of inmates in the United States, because the vast majority of crimes are prosecuted at the state level. There are about 147,000 convicted federal inmates compared to over a million held in state prisons and 103,000 convicts held in local jails. > This methodology of counting current prison population is biased for more serious crimes with longer sentencing This strikes me as an attempt to move the goalposts, given that we're several comments deep into a thread which started with the claim that "95% of US inmates are on plea deal".

docmars 2y ago

I agree with you on principle, if the stat you shared is true. With regards to Boeing, I'm not sure that's relevant, given the numerous reports of poor maintenance and outright mid-flight failures and flaws caused as a result is sufficient evidence for some kind of wrongdoing on Boeing's part. For this case, given that plea deals are used to expedite the court process and result in a less harsh penalty as an incentive, it's the most advantageous thing for Boeing to do because there was probably no hope in defending a guiltless verdict.