this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2024

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Punishment for financial crimes should be proportionate to the average yearly income. (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I.e. 100k embezzlement gets you 2.5 years

Edit.

I meant this to be the national average income (40k if I round up for cleaner math), not based on the individuals income, it's a static formula.

Crime$$$/nat. Avg. Income = years in jail

100k/40k = 2.5 years

1mill /40k=25 years

My thoughts were, if they want to commit more crime but lessen the risk, they just need to increase the average national income. Hell, I'd throw them a bone adjust their sentences for income inflation.

Homie gets two years (80k/40k=2), but the next year average national income jumps to 80k (because it turns out actually properly threatening these fuckers actually works, who'd've figured?), that homies sentence gets cut to a year he gets out on time served. Call it an incentive.

Anyways, more than anything, I'm sorry my high in the shower thought got as much attention as it did.

Good night

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

I think it should be proportional to the lives affected. You embezzeled 100000 people you will spend 100000 years in jail. White collar crimes deserve harsher punishment than blue collar crimes.

[–] Kalcifer 1 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I.e. 100k embezzlement gets you 2.5 years

For whom? Your post title seems to talk about having proportionate punishments:

Punishment for financial crimes should be proportionate to the average yearly income.

yet you only stated a single punishment without mention to whom it would apply, and how it would differ for someone else.

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Fueling the for-profit incarceration/slavery industry even more?

[–] Kalcifer 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How so?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Years in jail. A fine in proportion to their wealth is better imo.

[–] Kalcifer 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Years in jail. […]

For clarity, are you saying that the more that people are incarcerated, the more money the private prisons and jails make?

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[+] [email protected] -14 points 1 week ago (17 children)

Punishing people harder has never in human history actually solved a problem.

[–] Kalcifer 2 points 1 week ago

Imo, I don't think that OP is necessarily advocating for a harsher punishment for anyone, but more that whatever punishment is enforced should be felt equally by everyone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I see many down-votes. I assume these are the positions people are having (please correct me if I'm wrong or mischaracterizing):

JubilantJaguar: There is no evidence for harsher punishments having an effect any more than moderate punishments. I even go as far as saying that punishment at all is not beneficial.
Comments critical of JubilantJaguar: How can you say that punishment doesn't work when rich criminals basically can go home for free after committing their crimes? How can you say that punishment doesn't work when domestic abuse used to be widespread?

While looking for the middle ground or a compromise can be seen as absurd, the evidence seems to support parts of both of these stances. For example, moderate punishment has been shown to reduce crime much more than harsh crime.

A simple example is how many countries around the world no longer execute people in public as a form of punishment. For the vast majority of those countries, violent crime has been reduced drastically. In the light of these two facts (less executions and less violent crime), is it really tenable to argue that "harsher punishments result in less crime"? So, what is actually causing crime to be deterred?

Some people have thought long and hard about this problem, and we now have the evidence to understand what drives crime down. Here's one such person and their summary of their findings: "An effective rule of law, based on legitimate law enforcement, victim protection, swift and fair adjudication, moderate punishment, and humane prisons is critical to sustainable reductions in lethal violence" (https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Homicide-Dispatch_1_EN.pdf)

I know lethal violence is different to non-violent crime, such as wage theft. However, imagine a CEO making the decision to steal wages. Where is he located? Who, if anyone, surrounds him? What is his demeanor? Now imagine a society with "an effective rule of law, based on legitimate law enforcement, victim protection, swift and fair adjudication, moderate punishment, and humane prisons". What kinds of institutions would this society have? How would you feel walking in the streets or laboring in this society? Now, think about the CEO and the society at the same time. Are those two compatible? Would that criminal CEO really go home free in a society with those characteristics?

I assume there is an impulse to say that capitalism leads to classes of people who are treated fundamentally differently. Indeed, there is clear evidence that capitalism can lead to persistent inequalities (e.g. Piketty, Shaikh), which can enable extractive political institutions. Money can buy political privileges. However, capitalism is not the only force that shapes the world. Democracy is also incredibly powerful. They are two different vectors, two different carts pulling societies around the world in different directions. Without democracy as a counterweight, we wouldn't have the kinds of protections, rights, and guarantees that so many of us have. Are we ready to deny the legacy of democracy by insisting that we cannot remotely bring justice to wealthy criminals? Are we ready to deny the democratic values that so many of us have today? Are we ready to deny the effect that collective action for democracy has had in our institutions?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

This seems like a fair synopsis of the debate, well done for taking the time. You summarized my position accurately enough.

To be clear, I was making a very narrow point which should not really be controversial. Punishment, when understood as retribution, is an affront to human dignity and also just ineffective. It irritates me that so many people (the vast majority of us, let's be honest) seem stuck in this medieval mindset of "let's hurt the perpetrator".

But punishment does have other more positive aims, such as restoration (making amends to victims) or rehabilitation (of the perpetrator). Well: the evidence is pretty clear. Places with liberal (progressive) criminal-justice systems, countries like Norway with its ultra-light-touch sentencing and "holiday camp prisons", these places have far less crime than places like the USA where most people are still stuck in their conviction that things must be made miserable for the perpetrator. Ultimately, we have to decide what we want: do we want to feel good about ourselves for having got revenge on someone who did harm, or do we actually want a fairer society with less crime, including financial crime? If it's the latter, retribution is a dead end.

Back in the land of hard choices, of course wage thieves and tax evaders need to pay some kind of price for their misdeeds. Not least for the symbolic value, and for the shame (rather than suffering) that it inflicts on them. This is roughly what happened in Iceland after the financial crisis, BTW. A bunch of bankers did actually go to prison there. But the sentences were short and, IIRC, it was basically some form of house arrest. That seems to me like a decent solution.

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