[rtpg]

I can't imagine anyone going to jail so long for a non-violent crime.... though it's hard to understand where the limit is. I'd also like to see some people thrown in jail for other non-violent crimes.

Punishment seems hard to get right.

[tucson]

Would be interesting to see statistics of average sentence per crime. Something that would rank all crimes from highest average sentence to lowest, and where visitors can vote for sentences to go up or down. Crowdsourcing justice? Or is it better to leave justice in the hands of the few?

[AnthonyMouse]

>Something that would rank all crimes from highest average sentence to lowest, and where visitors can vote for sentences to go up or down.

Sounds like something extremely likely to have the "voters" self-select in a way that biases the results. You can easily imagine e.g. prison companies exhorting all their employees to vote in favor of excessive sentences for the things in danger of having their excessive sentences reduced or eliminated, with the argument that if it happens they'll lose their jobs.

But more than that, it seems pretty obvious in general which crimes have excessive penalties: It's the non-violent not-for-profit ones with felony penalties. I'm sure you can think of specific exceptions (e.g. "not-for-profit" state-level espionage), but in general it's a very good heuristic.

In particular, the "assume profit from volume" characteristic of some of these laws is a major failure that needs to go. With the drug laws the limits are set sufficiently low that you have recreational users who just buy/have a lot at once entirely for personal use being prosecuted as distributors, and with copyright the number of copies made is so far abstracted from the actual harm to the copyright holder and is so hard to accurately measure that making it the deciding element in criminal law is a blunt instrument at best and to be less kind is exactly the sort of thing that can lead to the felony prosecution of someone like Aaron Swartz. If the government wants to prosecute someone for engaging in a for-profit activity, they should have to actually prove that you made a profit from it.

[zokier]

> Punishment seems hard to get right.

That's why some advocate focusing on rehabilitation instead of punishment. I'm not really sure if I agree, rehabilitation sounds bit too close to brainwashing and clockwork orange in my mind.

[pyre]

Well, there is an idea that they should stay in jail until we are reasonably sure they don't pose a danger to society / won't re-offend.

When you file for bankruptcy, you are usually required to take some classes on managing your finances. This is a rehabilitation of sorts, but I wouldn't call it 'brainwashing.'

[jessaustin]

until we are reasonably sure they don't pose a danger to society / won't re-offend

This might make sense for murder, but for most lesser crimes it's problematic. If someone is in the habit of getting in bar fights every few times he goes out drinking, would we be justified or even well-served to put him in jail until we're sure he would never go out drinking again? That could be decades!

It goes without saying that this idea is extremely problematic with respect to "crimes" against fictitious "property" like we have here.

[bjustin]

>Well, there is an idea that they should stay in jail until we are reasonably sure they don't pose a danger to society / won't re-offend.

Sounds quite a bit slowly than actively trying to reform them.

[pyre]

Sorry, I wasn't entirely clear. I meant actively trying to reform them, but not releasing them until we know that they are reformed.

Some people seem to have the idea that reforming criminals is just a bunch of 'bleeding hearts' going into the prisons and singing 'kumbaya' with the prisoners, then releasing them as 'reformed.'

[smogzer]

His punishment is work for the public good for X hours in a way he chooses. He chooses to digitalize and publish works of creativity that deserves to be seen by the masses. As he already done that already; he gets as change, the thank you from the public and a medal for his work even going against the laws.