[XCabbage]

> even this length of sentence has a high chance of producing a hardened, bitter criminal with hacking skills.

You present this as an argument for a shorter sentence. But from another perspective, it's an argument for never letting him out.

Prison isn't primarily meant to rehabilitate; you are almost certainly right that it will do the exact opposite in this case. Its power to deter is also limited. But what it can do, if we are simply willing to use it for that purpose, is contain dangerous people and prevent them from harming others again by simply not giving them the opportunity to do so.

[jjmarr]

> Prison isn't primarily meant to rehabilitate; you are almost certainly right that it will do the exact opposite in this case.

Prisons are meant for rehabilitation in Finland, where the case was decided. And the system maintains a lower recidivism rate than the US with a lower incarceration rate + less crime.

https://yle.fi/a/3-11214953

The underlying stats show that rehabilitative models with lighter sentences are better.

[zoklet-enjoyer]

Some people can't be rehabilitated

[ceejayoz]

Given the respective recividism rates, it seems clear that quite a few can be who aren't in the more punitive systems.

[kelseyfrog]

What's your scissor for determining who is which?

[n4r9]

> it's an argument for never letting him out

It is an argument, although that might count as unusually cruel or disproportionate for a crime like this. Even murderers in Finland are typically pardoned and released after 12-15 years.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Even murderers in Finland are typically pardoned and released after 12-15 years

What about serial murderers? The damning part—to me—isn’t the crime per se but the repeat offenses.

The Finnish system is famously good at rehabilitating criminals. But what do you do with the edge cases? (I guess our system, which excels at incapacitation and retribution, has its edge cases in the unjustly imprisoned. Put that way, having the edge default to letting out a few incurable criminals from time to time might be the fairer solution.)

[ceejayoz]

This is generally well handled.

https://apnews.com/article/science-norway-europe-oslo-crime-...

> While the maximum prison sentence in Norway is 21 years, the law was amended in 2002 so that, in rare cases, sentences can be extended indefinitely in five-year increments if someone is still considered a danger to the public.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> Put that way, having the edge default to letting out a few incurable criminals from time to time might be the fairer solution.

Blackstone's ratio[0]

He's a scumbag, but the folks that didn't secure that data were also complicit (although unintentionally). I know that the company went belly-up, but I'd suggest the company that wrote and sold the software also shares culpability, as they likely sold it as some kind of magic beans.

There's really no substitute for not collecting the information in the first place, but in this community, that's heresy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio