Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

bostonglobe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 82 posts

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#41

Post by ansible »

goodpoint wrote: post #33
nimbius wrote: post #16

what it means is less important than the real questions it raises. - if in the united states we refer to our prisons as 'correctional' facilities, what quantitative correction could require nearly a century of internment? - if by any study it costs nearly 40,000 dollars to house a prisoner for one (1) year, was the night watchmans life truly worth 3.2 million dollars of Connecticut taxpayers money? - what meaningful…

> if in the united states we refer to our prisons as 'correctional' facilities, what quantitative correction could require nearly a century of internment? It's only punishment, there is no correction at all. > if by any study it costs nearly 40,000 dollars to house a prisoner for one (1) year, was the night watchmans life truly worth 3.2 million dollars of Connecticut taxpayers money? Can we please not value people's…

> Can we please not value people's life in money?

It feels quite icky to do this, but it is necessary when making policy decisions.

Every day, governments and corporations decide to spend (or not spend) X amount of dollars to save Y number of lives. Does it make sense to spend some money on infant mortality prevention, vs research on cancer types that only really old people get? What about seatbelt laws? Or pollution prevention?

Ideally, we would rationally spend our limited money on providing the best life for the most people. Not that this actually happens for a variety of reasons.

If we are to get the best value for our money, then we need to assign a value to human life in terms similar to disability-adjusted life years (DALY):

https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr...

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#42

Post by zapdrive »

stevenjgarner wrote: post #5
throw1234651234 wrote: post #3

98. In prison. I imagine there is some theme about how luck and genetics still play a much larger role in health than stuff like sleep, diet, and fitness that I comfort myself with. No idea who this guy is btw, but back to the basics. 98. In prison - pretty amazing.

"he has spent closer to 85 years in the justice system. He is very likely the longest-serving prisoner, ever, in the United States. .... He seems to believe he is still in prison, though he was paroled to the nursing home in 2020. In fact, he could technically leave — to go get lunch, or visit one of the nearby towns — but someone would have to request permission and sign him out, which no one appears to have ever do…

He could have been paroled in 2012, but was either paranoid or in a mental state where he didn't understand what they were asking and refused to sign the papers.

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#43

Post by habitue »

ceejayoz wrote: post #37
habitue wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prison has multiple purposes: retribution, incapacitance, deterrence, and rehabilitation. - retribution: gives victims and families of the victim retribution. This one doesn't seem important in the modern day, but if you ignore it you get vigilante revenge, blood feuds, honor culture etc. Having the state take on "revenge" kills these cycles. - incapacitance: straight up preventing dangerous people from being out and…

> we'd have to spend a lot more tax dollars on prisoners to actually rehabilitate anything Not necessarily. Recidivism costs a lot , too. Norway spends over $100k/inmate, to the US's $25k/inmate ( https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2022/10/25/what-can-we-learn-from-t... ), but only 20% reoffend versus 2/3 of American inmates. (Resulting in 70/100k incarcerated versus the US's 700/100k; that $100k/year starts to look like $10k/…

> recidivism costs a lot too

Right, but it's all indirect costs, paid in diffuse ways by various entities (insurance companies, often), whereas a politician suggesting raising taxes to help prisoners is a direct cost that taxpayers are loathe to pay.

Which isn't to say you're wrong, but it'd be a long campaign to change the cultural framing in a way that allowed these kinds of reforms to take place. Until then, people will be looking at that top-line Norway $100K per prisoner and shaking their heads.

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#44

Post by [deleted] »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #3

98. In prison. I imagine there is some theme about how luck and genetics still play a much larger role in health than stuff like sleep, diet, and fitness that I comfort myself with. No idea who this guy is btw, but back to the basics. 98. In prison - pretty amazing.

[deleted]

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#45

Post by [deleted] »

nimbius wrote: post #16

what it means is less important than the real questions it raises. - if in the united states we refer to our prisons as 'correctional' facilities, what quantitative correction could require nearly a century of internment? - if by any study it costs nearly 40,000 dollars to house a prisoner for one (1) year, was the night watchmans life truly worth 3.2 million dollars of Connecticut taxpayers money? - what meaningful…

[deleted]

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#47

Post by [deleted] »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #3

98. In prison. I imagine there is some theme about how luck and genetics still play a much larger role in health than stuff like sleep, diet, and fitness that I comfort myself with. No idea who this guy is btw, but back to the basics. 98. In prison - pretty amazing.

[deleted]

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#48

Post by dsego »

glimshe wrote: post #24
nimbius wrote: post #16

what it means is less important than the real questions it raises. - if in the united states we refer to our prisons as 'correctional' facilities, what quantitative correction could require nearly a century of internment? - if by any study it costs nearly 40,000 dollars to house a prisoner for one (1) year, was the night watchmans life truly worth 3.2 million dollars of Connecticut taxpayers money? - what meaningful…

Some countries limit the time you can spend in prison for this very reason, no matter what you did. For instance, Brazil sets it to 40 years total even if you killed 100 people.

Croatia is the same, our serial killer that started killing when he was 16 is being released soon, killed someone on a free weekend while serving time, got married in prison. Not sure what to say of such a system, I'm not really in favor.

And 40 years is like the max, for raping and killing it's more like 15-20, eg a deranged man who chopped of a tourist's head is released in a few years after serving 15, another man that raped and killed a minor is soon to be out as well after 22 years in prison.

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#50

Post by Femolo »

slashdev wrote: post #29
glimshe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some countries limit the time you can spend in prison for this very reason, no matter what you did. For instance, Brazil sets it to 40 years total even if you killed 100 people.

I’m a fan of the death penalty for really egregious cases, given a hypothetical perfect Justice system. Some people are not worth trying to rehabilitate. However, the Justice system is flawed and a decent percentage of people who get the death penalty are innocent. So what do you do? I’d rather they be locked up for the rest of their natural lives, barring a change in evidence or technology that leads to a change in…

I'm against it as I do believe that we are not just the result of our own free will free of anything but a result of our environment, luck etc.

I'm lucky that I had parents which gave me behavior patterns which do not make me kill or rape others.

And even if someone believes they are right, they are actually right just no in the moral and ethical sphere of a majority.

I don't like rape and in my world it's wrong. But that doesn't change their world view. And I don't kill him due to this because why would I be allowed to end the life of someone else?

The best I can do is to remove this person from the society.

It's easy to kill and hard not to.

And in the worst case scenario I would kill someone who hurts or killed a close person (perhaps) but I would need to accept the consequences of it.

Post reply on HN