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Leaving aside victimless crimes for now (drugs, gambling prostitution), one problem with US sentencing is that it doesn't scale linearly. For instance, the sen

Leaving aside victimless crimes for now (drugs, gambling prostitution), one problem with US sentencing is that it doesn't scale linearly. For instance, the sentence for petty larceny can be 6 months to a year. The penalty for 1st degree murder can be 30 years to life. I don't know anyone who would think Murder is merely 30 to 60 times worse than stealing underwear from Walmart. I'm not one of those who thinks we should adopt Nordic style sentences. I.e. Anders Breivik should never see the light of day again in my opinion. But sentences should be appropriate to the seriousness of what was done. Since the worst possible penalty is death/life in prison, which is ~30 to 60 years in most cases, lesser crimes such as theft or fraud should merit much smaller penalties. I.e. a day in jail, community service or payment of restitution.

mistermann 12y ago
I often wonder if there has been a legitimate study on "public humiliation" style community service, something like wearing an orange suit and picking garbage in a visible public location. That seems to me like something that would be quite effective in many (not all) situations.
- nostromo 12y ago
  We have that for sex offenders. It's basically a scarlet letter. Your name, address, and photos are put online. Has it reduced those crimes? I have no idea.
  - mistermann 12y ago
    Even if it hadn't, I wouldn't consider it proof that it wouldn't for others. One demographic I could see it working well on is younger offenders - whereas some forms of punishment could be considered "cool", being publicly forced to do something and wearing an outfit not of your choosing while doing it, I can't see how that would be considered cool. Also, it could avoid them meeting the wrong people while in the joint which might lead them further down the wrong path. At the very least it would be cheaper than almost any other form of punishment, plus you'd get some garbage picked up.
Shivetya 12y ago
Murder pretty much means you don't belong in a polite society, especially in the first degree. Do you even know what 1st degree is? Do you really want that person back out, ever? There are monsters in this world, they are human. Society is best served with them not being amongst it freely.
- davidcbc 12y ago
  The purpose of prison shouldn't be JUST punishment, but also (and more importantly) rehabilitation. Very few people are actually completely beyond reintegration into society. We need a prison system that is designed to teach prisoners how to effectively reintegrate with society and provides the mental help that they need instead of one that just perpetuates the cycle.
  - infectoid 12y ago
    Completely agree. There seems to be much more focus on punishing people than changing them into productive members of society. Sure, there are cases where people will never be able to integrate and that can be dealt with. But there is so much cognitive surplus being wasted here. We need all hands on deck for the coming decades. We need to grow up.
- DougWebb 12y ago
  What about soldiers? They kill people too, with all of the careful planning that goes into 1st degree murder, and they even get training on how to do it. The only things that makes what they do not murder is the uniform and the orders from the government. (You might also include an ethical/moral basis for the orders, but that's arguably present in a lot of murder cases too.) Getting soldiers back into civilian life can be challenging, but no one questions that it's something we must try to do. People who are convicted of murder did what they did for many different reasons, and making a blanket statement that they're all monsters and should be denied even the chance to rejoin society is wrong. Sure, some of them are lost causes, but not all of them, and therefore we have to give all of them a chance at redemption.
  - 12y ago
hypersoar 12y ago
To clarify, Norway, for example, does have functional life imprisonment. They just don't have life sentences. People's prison terms can be extended for 5 years at a time (with the option for the prisoner to petition for parole every year) if they're still considered dangerous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_Norway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_Norway
- argumentum 12y ago
  Sure, but even if he's kept away from society for life (which is far from guaranteed), he still gets to enjoy a decent standard of living. http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1989083,00.html http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1989083,00...
  - logn 12y ago
    I think that giving an evil person a decent standard of living is worth it so that all the other people who eventually enter society again are properly rehabilitated. Also, like the article pointed out, I'm not sure many people really appreciate how harsh prison is. Even with cable TV and AC, it's still prison.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    And so what? The prison sentence is not punishment for him - it's protection for the rest of us. Punishment has no other function than being petty revenge. I guess you could make an economic case for simpler lodgings, but the prison wasn't made for him - It would probably cost more to alter his cell for the worse than just keep it standard.
    - argumentum 12y ago
      Call me old fashioned if you will, but I support the idea of just punishment as a deterrent in violent crimes such as murder. I wouldn't call it revenge, rather justice: the idea that you are held to account for the harm you cause others.
ggreer 12y ago
That non-linearity applies to sentences for the same type of crime as well. Many of the HN crowd may remember the first chapter of Steven Skiena's Algorithm Design Manual. In a section about logarithms, it showed Federal Sentencing Guidelines for fraud. Stealing $350,000 got a 9 point increase in severity. To get up to 18 points, you needed to steal over $80,000,000! The paragraph ended with: The moral of logarithmic growth is clear: "If you are gonna do the crime, make it worth the time!" The reason for this is simple: Sentence length isn't just retribution for the crime. It can be for rehabilitation as well (at least, in other countries). Prison sentences also try to have a deterrent effect. Thieves aren't caught nearly as often as murderers. If the punishment for theft was repayment and a fine, we'd see a lot more theft. It's a similar story with drunk driving. Most of the time, people get away with driving drunk. Nobody gets hurt, nobody gets pulled over. But we want to discourage this behavior since it does kill people. So we make harsh punishments for even a first-time offense. It's interesting that you bring up the example of Anders Breivik. How would your opinion of him change if, hypothetically, it were later shown that he had a brain tumor? For me, the justification for retribution evaporates. Sure, lock him up forever; he's still dangerous. But if we can trace someone's actions back to causes outside of their control, doesn't that obviate the need for punishment? Then, all we can do is try to rehabilitate them and/or keep them from harming others. I think this argument applies to the vast majority of people in prison. We don't choose our genes. We don't choose our parents. We don't choose the household or culture we grow up in. We don't choose how much lithium is in our tap water.[1] The vast majority of our personalities and behaviors are shaped by forces completely outside our control, often without our knowledge. We're nowhere close to fully understanding the interactions between genes and environment necessary to diagnose each person's violent behavior, but that's no excuse for exacting retribution. Right now our society is effectively punishing people for having brain tumors. I think focusing on rehabilitation would be much more effective and fair, even for some of the most horrific crimes. 1. Yes, this actually matters: http://www.gwern.net/docs/nootropics/1990-schrauzer.pdf http://www.gwern.net/docs/nootropics/1990-schrauzer.pdf
- argumentum 12y ago
  > The reason for this is simple: Sentence length isn't just retribution for the crime. It can be for rehabilitation as well (at least, in other countries). Prison sentences also try to have a deterrent effect. Thieves aren't caught nearly as often as murderers. If the punishment for theft was repayment and a fine, we'd see a lot more theft. It's a similar story with drunk driving. Most of the time, people get away with driving drunk. Nobody gets hurt, nobody gets pulled over. But we want to discourage this behavior since it does kill people. So we make harsh punishments for even a first-time offense. One obscene result of this paradigm is that you sacrifice the actual lives of individuals for merely potential benefits for society. The literary example is Jean Val Jean, who of course ends up spending a lifetime in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. This actually happens in American justice. Those harshly punished for minor offenses are not only not rehabilitated, they are turned into hardened criminals by association with the low-lifes who truly deserve to be in prison. > It's interesting that you bring up the example of Anders Breivik. How would your opinion of him change if, hypothetically, it were later shown that he had a brain tumor? For me, the justification for retribution evaporates. To extend your hypothetical, say we can conclusively prove that the universe is deterministic and there is no such thing as free will. Then is no one responsible for anything they do? I contend, in the absence of contradicting evidence, we must live as if we have free will, because (ironically) we have no other choice. So if Breivik's lawyers/doctors demonstrate a brain tumor affecting his behavior, we treat him differently than we do the garden-variety psychopathic mass-murderer he appears to (and purports to) be.
dandrews 12y ago
> "sentences should be appropriate to the seriousness of what was done" Sentences should be high enough to deter crime, and no higher. If one month of prison time doesn't reduce your petty theft rate significantly, then double it. Measure the new offense rate then double the penalty again. Eventually you'll reach that knee in the curve where any additional punishment you can mete out has little significant effect, and that's your magic number. The idea of "lesser crimes" should not be used to influence punishment. You cannot linearly compare shoplifting against auto theft or battery - so it's not possible to assign commensurate sentences. Compile the offense rates and then go for the knees, dispassionately.
- sobkas 12y ago
  Because a drunk driver thinks how many years will he spend in prison for causing an accident and killing people and not thinking that nothing will happen because no one will catch him?
  - dandrews 12y ago
    I don't understand your question. My point was that sentence guidelines should generally be data-driven, the dependent variable being the crime rate for a specific offense. I did not mention edge cases, judicial discretion, capital offenses, recidivism, rehabilitation, and other gnarly stuff.
    - sobkas 12y ago
      My point is: did criminal made a decision to commit a crime based on facts and rational tough or he made it based on other factors. Was he even capable of doing so(drunk driver, ideological driven crimes). Did he considered the length of sentence, when his goal is to not get caught and not minimising the time of incarceration? Does in your example crimes with lower rate of catching criminals will end with a very high sentences and few caught will get an unreasonable jail times? "You have pirated a song, an infinity in jail is Your sentence" "Data-driven" is a reasonable approach, but what data should be allowed to drive? Choosing what kind of data to use and making relevant conclusions from it is the hard part.

mistermann 12y ago

I often wonder if there has been a legitimate study on "public humiliation" style community service, something like wearing an orange suit and picking garbage in a visible public location. That seems to me like something that would be quite effective in many (not all) situations.

nostromo 12y ago
We have that for sex offenders. It's basically a scarlet letter. Your name, address, and photos are put online. Has it reduced those crimes? I have no idea.
- mistermann 12y ago
  Even if it hadn't, I wouldn't consider it proof that it wouldn't for others. One demographic I could see it working well on is younger offenders - whereas some forms of punishment could be considered "cool", being publicly forced to do something and wearing an outfit not of your choosing while doing it, I can't see how that would be considered cool. Also, it could avoid them meeting the wrong people while in the joint which might lead them further down the wrong path. At the very least it would be cheaper than almost any other form of punishment, plus you'd get some garbage picked up.

Shivetya 12y ago

Murder pretty much means you don't belong in a polite society, especially in the first degree. Do you even know what 1st degree is? Do you really want that person back out, ever? There are monsters in this world, they are human. Society is best served with them not being amongst it freely.

davidcbc 12y ago
The purpose of prison shouldn't be JUST punishment, but also (and more importantly) rehabilitation. Very few people are actually completely beyond reintegration into society. We need a prison system that is designed to teach prisoners how to effectively reintegrate with society and provides the mental help that they need instead of one that just perpetuates the cycle.
- infectoid 12y ago
  Completely agree. There seems to be much more focus on punishing people than changing them into productive members of society. Sure, there are cases where people will never be able to integrate and that can be dealt with. But there is so much cognitive surplus being wasted here. We need all hands on deck for the coming decades. We need to grow up.
DougWebb 12y ago
What about soldiers? They kill people too, with all of the careful planning that goes into 1st degree murder, and they even get training on how to do it. The only things that makes what they do not murder is the uniform and the orders from the government. (You might also include an ethical/moral basis for the orders, but that's arguably present in a lot of murder cases too.) Getting soldiers back into civilian life can be challenging, but no one questions that it's something we must try to do. People who are convicted of murder did what they did for many different reasons, and making a blanket statement that they're all monsters and should be denied even the chance to rejoin society is wrong. Sure, some of them are lost causes, but not all of them, and therefore we have to give all of them a chance at redemption.
- 12y ago

hypersoar 12y ago

To clarify, Norway, for example, does have functional life imprisonment. They just don't have life sentences. People's prison terms can be extended for 5 years at a time (with the option for the prisoner to petition for parole every year) if they're still considered dangerous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_Norway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_Norway

argumentum 12y ago
Sure, but even if he's kept away from society for life (which is far from guaranteed), he still gets to enjoy a decent standard of living. http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1989083,00.html http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1989083,00...
- logn 12y ago
  I think that giving an evil person a decent standard of living is worth it so that all the other people who eventually enter society again are properly rehabilitated. Also, like the article pointed out, I'm not sure many people really appreciate how harsh prison is. Even with cable TV and AC, it's still prison.
- tormeh 12y ago
  And so what? The prison sentence is not punishment for him - it's protection for the rest of us. Punishment has no other function than being petty revenge. I guess you could make an economic case for simpler lodgings, but the prison wasn't made for him - It would probably cost more to alter his cell for the worse than just keep it standard.
  - argumentum 12y ago
    Call me old fashioned if you will, but I support the idea of just punishment as a deterrent in violent crimes such as murder. I wouldn't call it revenge, rather justice: the idea that you are held to account for the harm you cause others.

ggreer 12y ago

That non-linearity applies to sentences for the same type of crime as well. Many of the HN crowd may remember the first chapter of Steven Skiena's Algorithm Design Manual. In a section about logarithms, it showed Federal Sentencing Guidelines for fraud. Stealing $350,000 got a 9 point increase in severity. To get up to 18 points, you needed to steal over $80,000,000! The paragraph ended with: The moral of logarithmic growth is clear: "If you are gonna do the crime, make it worth the time!" The reason for this is simple: Sentence length isn't just retribution for the crime. It can be for rehabilitation as well (at least, in other countries). Prison sentences also try to have a deterrent effect. Thieves aren't caught nearly as often as murderers. If the punishment for theft was repayment and a fine, we'd see a lot more theft. It's a similar story with drunk driving. Most of the time, people get away with driving drunk. Nobody gets hurt, nobody gets pulled over. But we want to discourage this behavior since it does kill people. So we make harsh punishments for even a first-time offense. It's interesting that you bring up the example of Anders Breivik. How would your opinion of him change if, hypothetically, it were later shown that he had a brain tumor? For me, the justification for retribution evaporates. Sure, lock him up forever; he's still dangerous. But if we can trace someone's actions back to causes outside of their control, doesn't that obviate the need for punishment? Then, all we can do is try to rehabilitate them and/or keep them from harming others. I think this argument applies to the vast majority of people in prison. We don't choose our genes. We don't choose our parents. We don't choose the household or culture we grow up in. We don't choose how much lithium is in our tap water.[1] The vast majority of our personalities and behaviors are shaped by forces completely outside our control, often without our knowledge. We're nowhere close to fully understanding the interactions between genes and environment necessary to diagnose each person's violent behavior, but that's no excuse for exacting retribution. Right now our society is effectively punishing people for having brain tumors. I think focusing on rehabilitation would be much more effective and fair, even for some of the most horrific crimes. 1. Yes, this actually matters: http://www.gwern.net/docs/nootropics/1990-schrauzer.pdf http://www.gwern.net/docs/nootropics/1990-schrauzer.pdf

argumentum 12y ago
> The reason for this is simple: Sentence length isn't just retribution for the crime. It can be for rehabilitation as well (at least, in other countries). Prison sentences also try to have a deterrent effect. Thieves aren't caught nearly as often as murderers. If the punishment for theft was repayment and a fine, we'd see a lot more theft. It's a similar story with drunk driving. Most of the time, people get away with driving drunk. Nobody gets hurt, nobody gets pulled over. But we want to discourage this behavior since it does kill people. So we make harsh punishments for even a first-time offense. One obscene result of this paradigm is that you sacrifice the actual lives of individuals for merely potential benefits for society. The literary example is Jean Val Jean, who of course ends up spending a lifetime in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. This actually happens in American justice. Those harshly punished for minor offenses are not only not rehabilitated, they are turned into hardened criminals by association with the low-lifes who truly deserve to be in prison. > It's interesting that you bring up the example of Anders Breivik. How would your opinion of him change if, hypothetically, it were later shown that he had a brain tumor? For me, the justification for retribution evaporates. To extend your hypothetical, say we can conclusively prove that the universe is deterministic and there is no such thing as free will. Then is no one responsible for anything they do? I contend, in the absence of contradicting evidence, we must live as if we have free will, because (ironically) we have no other choice. So if Breivik's lawyers/doctors demonstrate a brain tumor affecting his behavior, we treat him differently than we do the garden-variety psychopathic mass-murderer he appears to (and purports to) be.

dandrews 12y ago

> "sentences should be appropriate to the seriousness of what was done" Sentences should be high enough to deter crime, and no higher. If one month of prison time doesn't reduce your petty theft rate significantly, then double it. Measure the new offense rate then double the penalty again. Eventually you'll reach that knee in the curve where any additional punishment you can mete out has little significant effect, and that's your magic number. The idea of "lesser crimes" should not be used to influence punishment. You cannot linearly compare shoplifting against auto theft or battery - so it's not possible to assign commensurate sentences. Compile the offense rates and then go for the knees, dispassionately.

sobkas 12y ago
Because a drunk driver thinks how many years will he spend in prison for causing an accident and killing people and not thinking that nothing will happen because no one will catch him?
- dandrews 12y ago
  I don't understand your question. My point was that sentence guidelines should generally be data-driven, the dependent variable being the crime rate for a specific offense. I did not mention edge cases, judicial discretion, capital offenses, recidivism, rehabilitation, and other gnarly stuff.
  - sobkas 12y ago
    My point is: did criminal made a decision to commit a crime based on facts and rational tough or he made it based on other factors. Was he even capable of doing so(drunk driver, ideological driven crimes). Did he considered the length of sentence, when his goal is to not get caught and not minimising the time of incarceration? Does in your example crimes with lower rate of catching criminals will end with a very high sentences and few caught will get an unreasonable jail times? "You have pirated a song, an infinity in jail is Your sentence" "Data-driven" is a reasonable approach, but what data should be allowed to drive? Choosing what kind of data to use and making relevant conclusions from it is the hard part.