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Comment by xiaoma | Hacker News Reader

That's a good point. However it's also worthwhile to consider that you are a criminal and so is pretty much every single adult US citizen. The massive expansion in criminal code over the past 50 years has ensured that crime is very commonplace and that enforcement rates are very low.

Harvey Silverglate, a Harvard law grad who works as an attorney, estimates the average American commits three felonies per day. He published an entire book on the topic[1]. The number is probably a lot higher for people who have built or served as directors of a company.

1) http://thinkaboutnow.com/2016/07/average-americans-commit-3-...

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That's a clickbait book title, not an academic study. The book cites examples of prosecutorial overreach, not all of which obtained convictions. And the examples tend to the arcane, like importing food, not activities most people engage in.

The most commonly commotted one is lying to an employer to claim a paid sick today... And frankly it's unclear to me why people thing that's acceptable, but taking $100 from a convenient store cash register is not.

> "And the examples tend to the arcane, like importing food, not activities most people engage in."

Another common one is people borrowing parents from their parents to make a down payment on a house. Lots of people do it, but the sentence for using such a loan and not disclosing it is 30 years.

This particular violation is referred to as a "head shot" by investigators looking for something with which to nail a suspect.

http://davidsimon.com/kwame-brown-another-federal-case-anoth...

The sentence isn't 30 years. The maximum sentence, assuming all the guideline accelerators are met, might be. In reality, the sentencing guidelines --- which if not followed make the sentence at least appealable --- for this probably result in probation for a first-time felon.

This doesn't detract from your point! Any felony conviction is a nightmare for someone just trying to build up a down payment for a house! But the way we talk about sentencing needs to be more sophisticated.

That's true. To go a bit further, most people aren't even charged, let alone sentenced. There are two problems with the ongoing expansion of US criminal code. One is the world-leading incarceration rate. The second and often ignored issue is as common practices are criminalized but only selectively punished, the country inexorably moves from a rule of law society, towards a rule by law society.

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