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Incredible. Please, please take a step back and read what you wrote. Now, for each of those instances you described, please assume this is your uncle, brother,

Incredible. Please, please take a step back and read what you wrote. Now, for each of those instances you described, please assume this is your uncle, brother, cousin etc? Do you still feel the same? No one is saying these people did nothing wrong. The main issue is that the punishment does not fit the crime. That's it. Simple. Where do we draw the line? Obviously for you the line is ok where it is at. But, frankly, all these cases, I have an intuitive sense that the punishment does not fit the crime. There are many people, I would assume that also have this intuitive sense. Why is this? I would make a guess that when I see someone like Martha Stewart getting less than a year in prison for securities fraud and someone "taking a wallet from a hotel room" getting life, well, it just doesn't jive right. Obviously this is just one example. The unevenness of it makes it wrong.

clarky07 13y ago
you clearly don't know me at all. I have a cousin that has stolen large sums of money from and threatened bodily harm to my grandma along with several other convictions that i'd like to stay in prison for a long time. I've got an uncle that I have similar feelings for. Also, you should re-read what I wrote. I also said that perhaps these don't deserve life, but "a long time" does seem reasonable. Finally, how is securities fraud worse than breaking and entering? How is securities fraud worse than "inadvertently killing someone?" Really? Yes yes, I know we hate the 1%. Terrible rich people. Insider trading is not worse than breaking and entering or killing someone. Come on now.
- meric 13y ago
  Breaking and entering: $1000's of damage, per instance. Insider trading: $100,000's of damage, per instance. Enforcement level of insider trading is also low, so a person can commit many more times the crime of insider trading before they're caught.
  - clarky07 13y ago
    Breaking and entering - very traumatic to someone. insider trading - traumatic to no one. I'm not sure what these "damages" you speak of are. Someone wanted to buy or sell stock, and an insider bought or sold it. Sure, they have more information, but someone always has more or different information. carl icahn and warren buffett have more information than me about a lot of things. yet we trade on the same market everyday. many economists argue that it should be legal, and it is a victimless crime. "Other critics argue that insider trading is a victimless act: a willing buyer and a willing seller agree to trade property which the seller rightfully owns, with no prior contract (according to this view) having been made between the parties to refrain from trading if there is asymmetric information. The Atlantic has described the process as "arguably the closest thing that modern finance has to a victimless crime""[1] i can't imagine how someone can suggest that insider trading is a worse crime than breaking and entering. also, FWIW, if you want to get mad at insider trading, don't get mad at martha stewart. She went to jail for it. Get mad at the fact that it is completely legal for politicians to insider trade. I mean WTF. They get non-public important information on a regular basis and for whatever bizarre reason we decided that they can trade on it but nobody else can. WTF? [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading#Arguments_for_legalizing_insider_trading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading#Arguments_for_l...
    - collyw 13y ago
      "insider trading -traumatic to no one." When the whole Enron thing went down a few years back, my flatmate at the time lost her job, as an accountant in the UK as a result of that.
      - clarky07 13y ago
        Losing a job is traumatic. Enron though, wasn't about insider trading. Yes several of the guys at the top were charged with insider trading, but they were also charged with fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, bank fraud, making false statements to banks and auditors, securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, among other crimes. Insider trading, not the thing that caused trauma, and in fact I believe most of them were actually acquitted on the insider trading charges. And, fwiw, the guys found guilty of these things did end up with significant prison terms for the trauma they caused. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal
- avenger123 13y ago
  You are right, I do not know you. Anyways, let's agree to disagree on this.
  - clarky07 13y ago
    ah quick edit there. I'll leave my response below. We can agree to disagree, but let me make a few more points first :-) I'll be civil I promise. He didn't get life for stealing the truck. he got life for stealing the truck in addition to the 2 other convictions. It's also not "any severity," but felony level severity. You can argue that the line in the sand has been drawn in the wrong place, but the line in the sand is for bad offenses. Stealing a chocolate bar is not a felony, it is a misdemeanor (pretty much everywhere as far as I can tell. Generally speaking, shoplifting is not a felony until is it several hundred dollars worth, usually $500).[1] You can argue that the "felony" label is too broadly applied to things that aren't "that bad." You can argue that life is too harsh of a punishment. Those are reasonable arguments. But in general, felonies are "severe" and not comparable to speeding tickets or chocolate bars. >Realistically if the first two strikes were horrendous the person would already be put in jail for life and a long time. There would be no opportunity for a third strike. By your logic, the courts got it wrong the first two times and now they are getting it right with the life sentence. I'd say it's more along the lines of we'll give you a couple chances, but only a couple. 1, go to jail for awhile and think about what you've done. 2, I told you not to do that and you kept doing it anyways think about it longer. 3. Dude, seriously. We warned you, and now we've had enough. Some felonies on their own are in fact worthy of life. Murder someone and you generally get life. They idea behind 3 strikes is that on their own maybe they aren't worth that long of a sentence, but they are bad and we gave you several chances. >Also, I am sorry, personally for me 20-30 years in jail is as good as life. perhaps. how about 10-15? I have no idea what the "right" amount of time for any crime is. All I'm suggesting is that it isn't that unreasonable to have that time scale for people who repeatedly prove that they aren't being productive members of society. [1] - http://examples.yourdictionary.com/what-are-examples-of-felonies-misdemeanors.html http://examples.yourdictionary.com/what-are-examples-of-felo...
    - hmsimha 13y ago
PeterisP 13y ago
Serial theft is a tricky issue. Imagine someone pricking you with a pin. And doing it repeatedly. For years. The crime is tiny, but you'd anyway want him to stop permanently. So the question is what do we do with people who commit small crimes as a lifestyle, and have proven repeatedly in practice that our rehabilitation doesn't work on them? On one hand, harsh punishment doesn't fit the crime, but on the other hand, allowing to continue to offend all the time (we locally had an underaged teenager that was caught stealing 20+ times in less than a year, but was always released because the legislation doesn't expect imprisonment in such cases) is stupid as well, since it hurts victims. What should we do with such people? I've no idea. Exile from society seems somehow appropriate, but we can't do that.
- summerdown2 13y ago
  > So the question is what do we do with people who commit small crimes as a lifestyle, and have proven repeatedly in practice that our rehabilitation doesn't work on them? Do you think the US system offers sufficient rehabilitation mechanisms to make the case that rehabilitation doesn't work? Personally, I don't. To European eyes, it looks revenge-heavy, and rehabilitation-light.
rlpb 13y ago
> The main issue is that the punishment does not fit the crime. The punishment certainly does not fit the description of the crimes given. But what were "the crime[s]", and how accurately have they been represented in the descriptions given in this article? It seems to me that the article has been written to be lenient with the truth, so I think it's acceptable to question the truth about the crimes represented here. We should have more information about these specific crimes before judging these specific cases.

clarky07 13y ago

you clearly don't know me at all. I have a cousin that has stolen large sums of money from and threatened bodily harm to my grandma along with several other convictions that i'd like to stay in prison for a long time. I've got an uncle that I have similar feelings for. Also, you should re-read what I wrote. I also said that perhaps these don't deserve life, but "a long time" does seem reasonable. Finally, how is securities fraud worse than breaking and entering? How is securities fraud worse than "inadvertently killing someone?" Really? Yes yes, I know we hate the 1%. Terrible rich people. Insider trading is not worse than breaking and entering or killing someone. Come on now.

meric 13y ago
Breaking and entering: $1000's of damage, per instance. Insider trading: $100,000's of damage, per instance. Enforcement level of insider trading is also low, so a person can commit many more times the crime of insider trading before they're caught.
- clarky07 13y ago
  Breaking and entering - very traumatic to someone. insider trading - traumatic to no one. I'm not sure what these "damages" you speak of are. Someone wanted to buy or sell stock, and an insider bought or sold it. Sure, they have more information, but someone always has more or different information. carl icahn and warren buffett have more information than me about a lot of things. yet we trade on the same market everyday. many economists argue that it should be legal, and it is a victimless crime. "Other critics argue that insider trading is a victimless act: a willing buyer and a willing seller agree to trade property which the seller rightfully owns, with no prior contract (according to this view) having been made between the parties to refrain from trading if there is asymmetric information. The Atlantic has described the process as "arguably the closest thing that modern finance has to a victimless crime""[1] i can't imagine how someone can suggest that insider trading is a worse crime than breaking and entering. also, FWIW, if you want to get mad at insider trading, don't get mad at martha stewart. She went to jail for it. Get mad at the fact that it is completely legal for politicians to insider trade. I mean WTF. They get non-public important information on a regular basis and for whatever bizarre reason we decided that they can trade on it but nobody else can. WTF? [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading#Arguments_for_legalizing_insider_trading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading#Arguments_for_l...
  - collyw 13y ago
    "insider trading -traumatic to no one." When the whole Enron thing went down a few years back, my flatmate at the time lost her job, as an accountant in the UK as a result of that.
    - clarky07 13y ago
      Losing a job is traumatic. Enron though, wasn't about insider trading. Yes several of the guys at the top were charged with insider trading, but they were also charged with fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, bank fraud, making false statements to banks and auditors, securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, among other crimes. Insider trading, not the thing that caused trauma, and in fact I believe most of them were actually acquitted on the insider trading charges. And, fwiw, the guys found guilty of these things did end up with significant prison terms for the trauma they caused. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal
avenger123 13y ago
You are right, I do not know you. Anyways, let's agree to disagree on this.
- clarky07 13y ago
  ah quick edit there. I'll leave my response below. We can agree to disagree, but let me make a few more points first :-) I'll be civil I promise. He didn't get life for stealing the truck. he got life for stealing the truck in addition to the 2 other convictions. It's also not "any severity," but felony level severity. You can argue that the line in the sand has been drawn in the wrong place, but the line in the sand is for bad offenses. Stealing a chocolate bar is not a felony, it is a misdemeanor (pretty much everywhere as far as I can tell. Generally speaking, shoplifting is not a felony until is it several hundred dollars worth, usually $500).[1] You can argue that the "felony" label is too broadly applied to things that aren't "that bad." You can argue that life is too harsh of a punishment. Those are reasonable arguments. But in general, felonies are "severe" and not comparable to speeding tickets or chocolate bars. >Realistically if the first two strikes were horrendous the person would already be put in jail for life and a long time. There would be no opportunity for a third strike. By your logic, the courts got it wrong the first two times and now they are getting it right with the life sentence. I'd say it's more along the lines of we'll give you a couple chances, but only a couple. 1, go to jail for awhile and think about what you've done. 2, I told you not to do that and you kept doing it anyways think about it longer. 3. Dude, seriously. We warned you, and now we've had enough. Some felonies on their own are in fact worthy of life. Murder someone and you generally get life. They idea behind 3 strikes is that on their own maybe they aren't worth that long of a sentence, but they are bad and we gave you several chances. >Also, I am sorry, personally for me 20-30 years in jail is as good as life. perhaps. how about 10-15? I have no idea what the "right" amount of time for any crime is. All I'm suggesting is that it isn't that unreasonable to have that time scale for people who repeatedly prove that they aren't being productive members of society. [1] - http://examples.yourdictionary.com/what-are-examples-of-felonies-misdemeanors.html http://examples.yourdictionary.com/what-are-examples-of-felo...
  - hmsimha 13y ago

PeterisP 13y ago

Serial theft is a tricky issue. Imagine someone pricking you with a pin. And doing it repeatedly. For years. The crime is tiny, but you'd anyway want him to stop permanently. So the question is what do we do with people who commit small crimes as a lifestyle, and have proven repeatedly in practice that our rehabilitation doesn't work on them? On one hand, harsh punishment doesn't fit the crime, but on the other hand, allowing to continue to offend all the time (we locally had an underaged teenager that was caught stealing 20+ times in less than a year, but was always released because the legislation doesn't expect imprisonment in such cases) is stupid as well, since it hurts victims. What should we do with such people? I've no idea. Exile from society seems somehow appropriate, but we can't do that.

summerdown2 13y ago
> So the question is what do we do with people who commit small crimes as a lifestyle, and have proven repeatedly in practice that our rehabilitation doesn't work on them? Do you think the US system offers sufficient rehabilitation mechanisms to make the case that rehabilitation doesn't work? Personally, I don't. To European eyes, it looks revenge-heavy, and rehabilitation-light.

rlpb 13y ago

> The main issue is that the punishment does not fit the crime. The punishment certainly does not fit the description of the crimes given. But what were "the crime[s]", and how accurately have they been represented in the descriptions given in this article? It seems to me that the article has been written to be lenient with the truth, so I think it's acceptable to question the truth about the crimes represented here. We should have more information about these specific crimes before judging these specific cases.