Hacker News Reader

Comment by badRNG | Hacker News Reader

It seems like the most straightforward path here is to ban auto thefts all together.

I think you're being a little bigoted. Auto theft is an important part of some cultures and it's important for us to be more inclusive of them.

Like San Francisco

Yeah! If we make it illegal, then people will stop breaking the laws. That is how it works, right?

Maybe we could try enforcing those laws with no mercy given to the "wayward teens who don't know any better" (they do.)

We tried that sort of approach; it's pretty widely considered a mistake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_...

I agree that 7 years ago it was widely considered a mistake, but I think we are currently reaching by a new consensus based on the opinions I have been seeing more commonly in the last 3 years.

We are in a conservative moment in the US right now.

This story is about Canada, though…

The VCCA is a US law, ask the above poster why they wanted this one.

It was a reply to the thread generally, which devolved into a US-centric response to a Canadian OP.

This logic depends on law-breakers being fully rational agents.

Yes, there are some, at least some of the time, but very few.

If they're not rational, they can go to jail? Isn't that the idea of jails: take people out of the system if they refuse to act by the rules of the system at other people's detriment.

Think there is not a clear ‘idea of jails’.

To me, the length of sentences in the US suggest that a primary purpose is deterrence, not merely keeping dangerous people off the street.

That is one of 4 reasons for jails. The other 3 are:

- Rehabilitation

- Retribution

- Deterrence

Couple years in prison would mean that they cannot soon reoffend. Seems like reasonable solution to me.

Do you know what the recurrence rate is for U.S. prisons? It's around 44%. 44% of people released from prison, within a year, go on to commit another crime severe enough to end them up back in prison

That doesn't seem overly surprising. Just as the people who acted in 2010 in a fashion that did not land them in prison probably acted in a way in 2015 that also did not land them in prison, it's not shocking that people who acted in 2010 in a way that landed the in prison might also act in 2015 in a way that lands them in prison.

I don't think that being in prison from 2011 to 2014 caused them to act that way in 2015.

We're not going to randomly assign (mostly) law-abiding citizens to prison to measure whether prison adds propensity to [what would be re-]offend, but there probably is something that is different about the never-imprisoned vs previously-imprisoned population that informs future likelihood to be imprisoned.

> I don't think that being in prison from 2011 to 2014 caused them to act that way in 2015.

You would be surprised. There's no concrete evidence pointing to this, but some suspects, when asked, will say that they did it because they have nothing left to lose.

What's the recurrence rate for people who commit a crime but aren't locked up?

> another crime severe enough to end them up back in

Then ramp up the penalty for repeat offences.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com