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Comment by ConceptJunkie | Hacker News Reader

But then you lose the value of deterrence. I'm not bashing Norway, but if that's what our prisons were like, I think a lot of people wouldn't find them a deterrent at all, and in fact for a lot of people, they would represent an improvement in their lives.

Prison should not be cruel (e.g., solitary confinement for more than a short period of time in unacceptable), but it should still be unpleasant if it is to serve as a deterrent to committing crime, and that is definitely one of the biggest reasons we have prisons... to incentivize people to stay out of them.

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Unfortunately, I think this is true.

If in a game I can steal 10 points and at most get a 1 point penalty for getting caught, I'm much more likely to give it a shot than if I get a 10 or 20 point penalty for getting caught. Plus, if everyone else in the game is cheating and getting away with it, I'm much more likely to try it too.

The problem is if you make the penalties so severe and the application of the rules unequal, then you end up with chopping people's hands off for stealing.

Losing your freedom is a -100. That is, if you value freedom.

Depends on how long you're in jail for and if it's Club Fed, or a Super Max.

I'm sure there are tons of people that would be willing to risk a month or even a year in Club Fed for a chance at set for life money.

The calculation is different for everyone.

If jail were not a terrible place, would criminals to be choose not to be criminals and just go to jail?

Perversion is not a solution to deterrence. Moreover, there are grave consequences to disproportionate punishment: all parts of the system would fight against it in different forms, from commiting crimes to prevent being caught, to disproportionate punishments based on the quality of the lawyers, etc.

It would be a much better deterrent to know that if a crime were committed, the punishment came swiftly: the threat of (almost) immediate jail time is much more powerful than the maybe (your life is over).

Again, if a society truly valued freedom, just losing that would be such a great punishment. When you say that such a punishment is not enough its precisely because you dont value freedom that highly.

What brought me to this path was the simple thought exercise: should escaping jail be illegal? How can it be illegal if it is a fundamentally moral act?

Your phrasing is really unfortunate in the sense that it limits our conception of how to deal with other humans. Yes, if we are trying to keep the malignant hoards at bay, then 'incentivize' with a whip. It's a fundamentally negative view of humanity and human nature.

Norway also has social welfare programs so prison is not anyone's best option.

Prisons aren't mainly intended to deter crime, they are for satisfying the public's vengeance lust and to divert taxpayer funds to cronies of government officials.

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