[umvi]

My initial thought is that this would create a "wild west" type society where bounty hunters go around and have shootouts with criminals, but without police training.

Also, how are cash fines going to work against broke criminals? "Oh, you stole a bunch of money because you have no money. Pay a fine"

[makecheck]

Punishments should focus a lot more on the situation of the person involved.

For example, community service if you can’t pay a fine. If you don’t have time due to multiple jobs, kids, etc. then perhaps the state offers services to give you time (day care, food or travel credits, whatever). Sure, the state pays for that but is it really so bad to pay for these things when we pay to run jails anyway? Seems we’d have fewer desperate “criminals” if we just treated them like people.

If you have little money and need to be working multiple jobs, etc. then of course bail, fines, and jail time will completely screw you and you’ll end up even more desperate and likely to (say) steal again. And since people aren’t just leaving stuff around to be stolen, you’d probably accomplish that through property damage (more charges! more jail!) or, unfortunately, weapons (despite best intentions, things go bad and you’re desperate and assault occurs: more charges! more jail!). This is an insane cycle.

[Avery3R]

As I understood it, the legal liability insurance pays. The criminal then has to deal with whatever repercussions are laid out in their contract with the insurance company.

[saagarjha]

So you're trading government-run prison for an insurance-run one?

[Avery3R]

Or increased premiums, or torture, or whatever. I think the idea is if you don't like what the insurance company uses as a threat of punishment you can just sign a contract with a different one.

[fao_]

This assumes that someone has the time to read full-length legal documents and comprehend them. A task that is difficult for a lawyer, someone who is not only trained, but paid to do such things. It also assumes that the market wouldn't stablize around an equilibrium that is good for the market and the companies, but bad for the individual -- something that frequently happens with regards to loan companies.

[tlb]

For that matter, the current legal system assumes that you have time to read the criminal law.

Presumably, the insurance companies will be strongly motivated to teach their clients how to stay out of trouble.

[fao_]

> Presumably, the insurance companies will be strongly motivated to teach their clients how to stay out of trouble.

Why? If your clients don't stay out of trouble, you get free indentured servants. It seems to me there is incentive to make it harder to stay within the confines of your contract.

[pdonis]

> I think the idea is if you don't like what the insurance company uses as a threat of punishment you can just sign a contract with a different one.

It's more than that. The requirement to have such a contract with an insurance company gives people an incentive to not engage in behaviors that will make it more expensive for them to obtain such a contract, just as the requirement to have auto insurance in order to drive gives people an incentive to not engage in behaviors that will make it more expensive for them to obtain such insurance.

[nine_k]

At least you have some choice when you choose your insurance! (Unless they outsource it.)

[__jal]

More or less. There are other formulations in which the insurance-function is bundled with other things (membership in an HOA-like structure, other protective services, etc.), but this is a fairly common scheme supported by a lot of anarcho-capitalist types. You can find some academic economic treatment in _The Machinery of Freedom_, by Friedman, and Vernor Vinge (science fiction author) seemed taken with the notion, too. He experimented with it in the _Across Realtime_ stories. Edit: Also Neal Stephenson, sort-of in _Snowcrash_, explicitly in _Diamond Age_.

I strongly dislike the notion because I believe access to justice is a bedrock function of society. But folks who think like me should also think long and hard about how much access "we" (in the US, not speaking for anyone else) have to justice without a big bank account now, and to what extent this would really change much.

[RobinHanson]

As you say "access to justice" costs lots of money today, it isn't obvious that this gives less such access.

[mjw1007]

Then, presumably, if the criminal doesn't follow the contract the case ends up in civil court.

And if the criminal refuses to submit to the judgement of the civil court, that's contempt of court which needs to somehow be enforceable.

You could make the contempt of civil court a criminal matter, but then the same insurer ends up having to pay restitution to itself and this doesn't seem to end well.

Or if the civil court has its own enforcement arm then we don't seem to have moved enforcement to the place he thinks we have.

[RobinHanson]

I did say explicitly that the one exception to fines as official punishment is failing to arrange for insurance. Your contract with an insurer can specify the court that judges disputes with it, and the forms of punishment available there.

[Someguywhatever]

I don't really understand their legal system, but from what i've heard, China has some kind of system like this. Where if you go to the police about something, they just sort of force the two parties to work it out and one of the parties pays the other a fine. If that were the case then this system seems ripe for abuse however, but I don't really know much about it. But seeing the headline and not actually RTFA my limited knowledge of China came to mind.

[394549]

> but from what i've heard, China has some kind of system like this. Where if you go to the police about something, they just sort of force the two parties to work it out and one of the parties pays the other a fine.

IIRC, if you accidentally run over someone with your car in China, it makes legal and financial sense to back up over them to make sure they're dead. The restitution payment for accidental death is much less than the lifelong restitution payments for the victim's medical care and disability.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...

> In China the compensation for killing a victim in a traffic accident is relatively small—amounts typically range from $30,000 to $50,000—and once payment is made, the matter is over. By contrast, paying for lifetime care for a disabled survivor can run into the millions. The Chinese press recently described how one disabled man received about $400,000 for the first 23 years of his care. Drivers who decide to hit-and-kill do so because killing is far more economical.

[nickik]

The "wild west" was really not as wild as people think.

A nice book that explores a little how problems were actually solved in the wild west is:

> The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier

> https://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Wild-West-Economics/dp/0804748...

[rosser]

> Also, how are cash fines going to work against broke criminals?

Sounds like a perfect opportunity to bring back debtor's prisons, where the interest on your debt and the fees for your keeping compound at a rate just higher than the rate you're "earning off" that debt...

Et voilà, endless, legal slave labor.

[RobinHanson]

Bounty hunters exist today, avoid shootouts, and are well enough trained when that happens. They would have no special powers, and thus be liable for any damages caused by a shootout.

[lliamander]

> My initial thought is that this would create a "wild west" type society where bounty hunters go around and have shootouts with criminals, but without police training.

As I understand it, the western frontier was actually relatively crime free (low rates of murder, robbery, etc.)

With regards to training, it seems like something vocational schools could offer at reasonable rates.