Hacker News Reader

> If you consider the primary goal of prison to be rehabilitation

at least in the us, this is the problem. it’s not about rehab, it’s about punishment and dissuasion. and it still fails there because it’s a for-profit system preying on the most vulnerable and most desperate members of society.

View on HN

I'm curious what rehabilitation looks like for Holmes? Is it just abstaining from future confidence schemes? What about SBF? Not stealing billions more?

Yeah honestly both of them deserve the death penalty as they stole many lifetimes with of work and value

this is a good point. i don’t know either. for these types of crimes i’m not sure that rehab is viable.

And it's clear that the dissuasion is not working— the US has the second largest incarcerated population in the world, second only to China (though the US rate of incarceration is significantly higher).

I would submit that the primary goal of the US prison system is to continue to operate with the most power and highest level of profit possible. To that end it seems to be performing relatively well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com