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Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

Something tells me that this will not be accompanied by a 57% decrease in crime rates, but will absolutely be accompanied by a 57% increase in imprisonment and legal expenditures to detain and prosecute these people. An argument can be made that, except in the case of dangerous fugitives, using a more efficient means of finding wanted people may cause more harm than good.

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So you are suggesting that some laws aren't worth upholding because they aren't financially viable?

They might be hinting at victimless crimes.

I'm suggesting that historical warrant service rates are used in calculating budgets, and making staffing and other decisions that will be hard to address in such a compressed period of time. One would assume this will result in a 57% increase in caseloads, which means 57% more time that cases take to make their way through court since more judges can't just magically appear. Most jails operate at or above capacity; a sudden 57% increase in inmates will result in all kinds of lawsuits and other expenses both for the inmates and for the counties that operate them.

Finally, yes, seeing minor crimes all the way through the court system is of questionable social value relative to the economic expense.

All of what you say may be true, but you're not actually advocating that a good solution here is to prevent certain parts of the system from working efficiently? There are probably better and more equitable ways to reduce case loads.

Some laws are not worth upholding or keeping, so arrests and court systems processing cases for those laws by definition aren't financially viable.

Well, ideally laws that don't make sense to enforce (e.g. drug laws) wouldn't even exist in the first place. Failing that, not enforcing them would be the next sensible step.

Except that laws that deal with morality and other behaviors that people never agree on (drugs and alcohol, sex, public behaviors, etc.) are political suicide to repeal, so few legislators would ever be willing to try, so (fill in the blank) will be illegal in (fill in State) for the foreseeable future.

So you think we should just give up entirely on trying to stop, say burglars and car thieves?

That's not what I said. I said that pursuing relatively minor cases (which I would not include in your example) more aggressively than we already do will serve only to tie up the justice system and make it more difficult to prosecute more serious offenses because all of the resources will be expended on a massive influx of first time DUI's and minor drug possession cases.

You said "dangerous fugitives". I suppose it depends on your definition (and obviously we vary), but I wouldn't consider a burglar to be a dangerous fugitive.

Why not? Just because a successful burglar hasn't used force before doesn't mean they won't if something goes wrong on a job. Anybody actively breaking in to other people's homes is providing the potential for a violent situation (even if its just "self defense" against a surprised homeowner).

I'm not saying that all burglars are violent thugs, but from a law enforcement perspective, the time to make that distinction is after apprehension, not before. (The obvious exception being criminals with a known history of violence, in which case additional precautions can and should be taken.)

I don't really want to get into an argument about semantics, but I feel there is a standard English definition of the term "dangerous fugitive", and it does not include a basic burglar. Googling for "dangerous fugitive" (not the perfect method, I know) shows multiple pages of people who are all suspected of already having committed a violent crime.

Deterence is increased both by the severity of the punishment, but also by the certainty of receiving the punishment. I think most major crimes are committed by people who have comitted minor crimes. If getting caught for minor things becomes more likely, it may be less tempting to go down that path. There's a large body of work trying to evaluate the effects of both causes. Arguably, the US has gone way down in the realm of diminishing returns in terms of severity, especially when it come to drug laws. Of course this doesn't take away any of the potential downsides in terms of civil liberties of any approach that raises the certainty of getting punishment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_(legal)

It's interesting that, according to that Wikipedia article, "...Research has shown that increasing the severity of a punishment does not have much effect on crime...". Someone should tell that to the state lawmakers where three strikes sentences are prevalent.

There are lots of theft on there.

It's probably true that just catching thieves does little to stop them from committing crime. Giving people treatment for addiction; giving them support for MH problems ('treatment' is a difficult concept for the problematic diagnosis of one of the personality disorders); and properly run restorative justice would be cheaper and do more to prevent repeated crime.

Unfortunately some people are not interested in that, and just want to punish offenders.

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