Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi • Hacker News Board

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#121

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

SamReidHughes wrote: post #110

dragonwriter wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what should happen if I get convicted of a crime and refuse to pay the fine? If you refuse ; the assets should be seized from you and the fine paid that way. If you are unable to , then the fine is, ipso facto , excessive. In either case penal slavery is not an appropriate answer.

Having to pay $13000 after embezzling $11000 is not excessive.

Having what is functionally a civil debt (even if it is imposed as part of a criminal judgement) for restitution collected by the means normal for unsecured civil debt, in the amount of the damages actually incurred plus reasonable interest, etc., is not excessive.

A criminal fine that it is impossible to pay with the person's actual means without impairing access to the basic necessities of life when the fine is imposed (including reasonably anticipated future income if the required mechanism of repayment allows it to be paid over time from future income), and no matter whether it is characterized as restitution or otherwise, no matter how it relates to past criminal gains, is excessive, and penal slavery (whether or not permitted by the 13th Amendment, which sets the bounds of what is legal but not what is moral) for inability to pay such an excessive fine compounds the injustice with gross violation of the most fundamental of human rights, and even more incarceration without penal slavery for inability (as opposed to refusal and obstruction when the means we're available) to pay would be piling injustice upon injustice.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#122

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #95

mendelmaleh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't all punishments deterrents tho?

No. A punishment fails as a deterrent if: + it is not expected + it is not understood + it is not net negative The first, not expected, fits when; one believes their actions are legal and then they are found not to be (correctly or incorrectly); one expects a different punishment to the one given, and the expected punishment was not a deterrent (often seen in fraud cases). The second, not understood, fits when one ex…

> A punishment fails as a deterrent if:

> + it is not expected + it is not understood + it is not net negative

Also if it is not expected to be avoided if the behavior sought to be deterred is avoided. The perception that a punishment is applied arbitrarily or with prejudice on grounds other than the behavior notionally justifying it defeats its value as deterrent as surely as a lack of perception that it will be applied if the behavior occurs.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#123

Post by LyndsySimon » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 8:44 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #18

Retric wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you consider having the highest percentage of population in incarcerated as winning. United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners. So yay go USA!

There's lots of space between recognizing a system is better than most and "So yay go USA!"

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” - Winston Churchill

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#124

Post by FireBeyond » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #45

romwell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potato potato, that person would not have been in prison had they paid off the debt . Where the debt comes from matters why exactly? The prison should be for one purpose only: to make society safer. If someone is dangerous enough to be in prison, they should not be out regardless of whether they owe money or not. In other words, if you can't buy your way out of prison, a debt should not bring you into one.

> Potato potato, that person would not have been in prison had they paid off the debt. No. The meaning of words matters. Words, used precisely, are how people with different values and beliefs can communicate and reach agreements in a functioning society. When journalists, who are supposed to inform and educate the public, twist the meaning of words in order to make a point, that’s wrong. > Where the debt comes from…

"In many cases, the only failing of the person had been to not pay the debt".

Explain again, how that is the article's fault, "deceiving us" into feeling a "restitution center" is a "debtor's prison".

There are people there who have crimes other than/as well as financial obligations. But there are also those who solely have the financial side.

Your argument is that because it's not a "civil debtor's prison", it doesn't count. But that's you inserting that qualifier. Historically, debtor's prisons were used both criminally and civilly.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#125

Post by FireBeyond » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #95

mendelmaleh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't all punishments deterrents tho?

No. A punishment fails as a deterrent if: + it is not expected + it is not understood + it is not net negative The first, not expected, fits when; one believes their actions are legal and then they are found not to be (correctly or incorrectly); one expects a different punishment to the one given, and the expected punishment was not a deterrent (often seen in fraud cases). The second, not understood, fits when one ex…

I'd argue that you often only need one of those criteria.

Witness Vinod Khosla and his battles: he has expected fines, understands them (though disagrees), and the net negative is (in his case) so trivial as to be negligible.

"Oh, you want to fine me $10,000/day? Well, go for it. By the end of my life that might amount to 3% of my net worth".

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#126

Post by FireBeyond » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 9:52 PM UTC

dfawcus wrote: post #113

rayiner wrote: post #36

> A judge sentenced Husband to the restitution center in 2015 to pay off almost $13,000 she owed from an embezzlement conviction in 2009. > The State of Mississippi had locked Husband into a modern-day debtors prison. Let’s agree that this sort of punishment is potentially not conducive to restorative justice. But what justification is there for the article to deceive the reader with a comparison to debtors prisons?…

> The EU Convention on Human Rights bans debtors prisons. FWIW it is the "European Convention on Human Rights", drafted in 1950, usually abbreviated as ECHR (with its court being ECtHR). It is distinct from the EU, being a product of the Council of Europe. Whereas the founding document for the EU (Treaty of Rome) was signed in 1957. As for the EU, it has its own "Charter of Fundamental Rights", somewhat based upon th…

Let's not also ignore the fact that most of the (Western European) states have explicitly _not_ ratified Article 4 of the EuCHR, despite having been signatories to the Convention.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#127

Post by FireBeyond » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #120

jdsully wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying restitution is one thing, being forced to stay in jail while paying it back is quite another. Normally these cases are handled with garnished wages.

The idea that if you give back what you stole your punishment will be lessened is as old as theft.

To be clear, there wasn't _only_ restitution (center) punishment. She was placed on probation for 5 years of a 7 year sentence. Except she was also being "held" at the restitution center while that part of her sentence was being carried out.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#128

Post by FireBeyond » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

SamReidHughes wrote: post #60

rtpg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage garnishing is easy? If you have an employer then now they are on the hook for following through as well. Hell, shut down the restitution centers and use that budget to help cover court fees instead! Think about it: if someone gets fined $10,000 and is working minimum wage, is there really anything good accomplished by trying to recover that much? Just cap out some wage garnishment scheme if you want to fine them…

The criminal has an actual victim who needs his money back. It's pretty important to him (or her) that he gets his money back. Maybe she could pay the restitution with the money she embezzled. She also skipped her meeting with her probation officer, more than once, and she didn't report to the probation officer (or the court, whatever) that she got an increase in income, when she got her job at Harrah's. Funny, that.…

Absolutely they mentioned it in the article.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#129

Post by SamReidHughes » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #128

SamReidHughes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The criminal has an actual victim who needs his money back. It's pretty important to him (or her) that he gets his money back. Maybe she could pay the restitution with the money she embezzled. She also skipped her meeting with her probation officer, more than once, and she didn't report to the probation officer (or the court, whatever) that she got an increase in income, when she got her job at Harrah's. Funny, that.…

Absolutely they mentioned it in the article.

Where do they mention that she didn't report an increase in income?

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#130

Post by FireBeyond » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:19 PM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #53

dfsgioninio wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. has the single highest incarceration rate in the world. In that respect, we have the worst criminal justice system in the world. Other metrics matter, of course, but let's not kid ourselves: the American system is an unmitigated disaster.

I see several comments complaining about the US incarceration rate without mentioning the US crime rate. You can’t credibly assert that the US incarceration rate is too high without knowing how it compares to the crime rate.

There's more to it than that - there's the plea bargain system, which is largely considered to be unethical elsewhere, that increases the _conviction_ rate.