Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryanmarsh | Hacker News Reader

I've observed the criminal justice system at work in Texas a few times. A murder case, some misdemeanors, a few felonies. I've seen it from arrest to prison life.

It is a dark and deeply depressing thing. There is little compassion for victims, the accused, the convicted. I could write a thousand words but it pains me to think about it.

I pray I never get falsely accused of a crime and I'm so glad I'm not black. If all the boring white folk who couldn't fathom finding themselves so much as suspected of a crime had to go through the criminal justice system as the average YBM the system would be massively overhauled yesterday.

Most of the boring white folk I know think everyone in jail is a cold blooded psychopath who works out all day and dreams of stabbing people... "hardened criminal".

The system is just full of unlucky humans. God knows I did shit in my youth I could still be in prison for. The extremely violent type are actually quite rare.

View on HN

My observation is that most criminals fall into a category that would be solved with "impulse control" pills and/or better mental health treatment. The big difference I have observed, independent of race, wealth, etc. is that people who have criminal records tend to "go off" while others do not. Otherwise it may as well be the same person.

I believe that if we can understand what make them tick, we can fix them.

Though that also comes with it the horrifying possibility of dystopian societal control.

"we" vs "them"...

I am always surprised when I (very often though) hear/read "normal" people, generally meaning good, who think that there are two separate kinds of individuals, the "we" and the "them"; who cannot fathom that all of "us" may slide slowly or fall suddenly into the "them" category.

Just to be clear, I thought everyone has a capacity for murder and other crimes.

Fixing 'them' may also involves fixing 'us' since crimes also occur in the context of our social environment. Think of prosecutors and the police. They are driven by incentive and cognitive bias to commit gross miscarriage of justice and get away with it.

In order to do that, you have to know humanity on an uncomfortably and dangerous deep level.

>My observation is that most criminals fall into a category that would be solved with "impulse control" pills and/or better mental health treatment.

Those are the violent criminals, repeat offenders, lowlife, etc.

There a huge number of "criminals" that are perfectly normal people like you and me that got dragged in some criminal act somehow.

Including totally innocent people that just looked too black, were in the wrong place, etc.

Impulse control? How about a guy who grew up destined to be a fuck up because everyone in his life is a fuck up?

Related. Impulse control is about which thoughts a person will decide to act on.

I could use some of that there impulse control.

> My observation is that most criminals fall into a category that would be solved with "impulse control" pills and/or better mental health treatment.

You don't even have to go that far. "Impulse control" is the big one. Several inner city social programs were all about getting people to simply think for a moment before doing things like killing someone for "disrespect". It's really surprising how strong the taboo for killing people is and how well it asserts itself if you just give it a moment to kick in.

Boring white folk? Do you mean boorish? Or maybe ignorant?

No. People who are middle of the road, don't take risks, don't hang out with odd characters, people who have zero chance of getting mixed up in something stupid.

“Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things.”

Biologically, risk taking when things are going well is a bad characteristic. Risk taking when things are going badly is probably a good characteristic. So I think you over value risk taking without any other considerations.

Basically people that follow the law?

It's quite possible to break out of picket-fence-and-white-bread without breaking the law.

Or at least, without breaking the law any more than anyone else does: http://www.volokh.com/posts/1248668478.shtml

(I don't find Kozinski and Tseytlin's original in a brief search, though it should be out there. Very much worth reading, and helpful to consider that federal law isn't the only possible risk.)

We all break the law, but only some of us are punished.

More to the point: the fact of that violation of law can be used in extraordinary ways to control people through threats and intimidation.

That is in fact what happens in poor and minority districts everywhere. It can happen elsewhere, and does and has in despotic regimes and times.

If you're doing anything interesting, there's a good chance that you'll end up in a courtroom, either criminal or civil.

Tons of tech businesses are built on the back of open disregard for intellectual property and tech access laws. It just takes the wrong combination of events to get hauled in for that. Look at Aaron Swartz, whose conviction proceeded purely based on Carmen Ortiz's desire to get a cybercrime prosecution on her resume.

The truth is that a good deal of the work that HN users are likely to get involved in could be considered criminal because of unfair laws like the CFAA, DMCA, and the Copyright Act, all of which prescribe criminal penalties.

There are other laws that stalk startups and businessmen, ranging from tax law to esoteric industry regulations. If a businessman makes the wrong person mad, he could easily end up locked in jail. Martin Shkreli is another good example of this -- a few days after he made the news and pissed everyone off, the SEC filed an indictment. They did that because it's easy to accuse anyone who's done anything slightly out of the ordinary of crimes. This really has almost nothing to do with the person's moral fortitude or the harm they've caused in the world, except insofar as you believe that people in authority are unwilling to target innocent people (true pretty often, but not often enough).

> If you're doing anything interesting, there's a good chance that you'll end up in a courtroom, either criminal or civil.

Funny you put it that way... I made this account to tell about the time I tried to protect my girlfriend from the mental health system. The hospital wouldn't let her go, so I went to the superior court and got a hearing. The commissioner looked into the matter and ruled that my girlfriend's detention by the hospital was not legal, and ordered the hospital to let her go.

I should have called the police to accompany me to retrieve my girlfriend from the hospital's illegal custody. I got attacked by one of the security guards, who I'd later learn knew exactly what to say to the responding police officer because he was a retired cop himself. I got arrested, and my girlfriend was sent to be professionally misdiagnosed and mistreated by the system.

That was last September. I'm going back to the courts next week to ask for another hearing. I have looked at the laws regarding compulsory mental health, and have found several that are not being complied with or respected.

But... Someone I respect told me soon after I was arrested that... "missionaries get eaten by cannibals." The system perpetuates itself.

That isn't the same.

I basically follow the law, on par with other folks that follow the law. I've never had a ticket even, though I've gotten pulled over. In the states, I worked in a pharmacy. They do background checks per federal regulation. Etc. I've generally found it would be bad to get in trouble for stuff, even when I disagree with the laws and/or punishments.

I also have blue hair (the color changes from time to time). That means that unless I'm established in an area, I'm a target. I'm in my late 30's and get followed around for theft in stores and have been most my life. Even if I'm dressed professionally. I've stopped in McDonalds where cops have stopped and gotten followed out of town. Some employers would have fired me for my hair or never given me a chance. I'm likely to get searched at airports (and have, once for bombs because of artists pastels). Luckily I'm living in a different country now, and though there is a bias, it doesn't hold me back nearly as much there.

What boring white folks really means is: People that look and act like the average white folks for the area, and are into the average things (or at least what can be observed). People that fit in place and aren't on the fringes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com