Comment by jlgreco | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jlgreco | Hacker News Reader

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No worries.

I think Bernie Madoff is an interesting example. He doesn't represent a threat to anybody (he is not a violent man. Furthermore we should be able to make sure he doesn't start running another scam again, even if he is free, since we know he is a con-man now), and if we discard vengeance as a legitimate reason to detain somebody, we then need to consider the value of detaining him as a deterrent to others.

If we are worried about psychopathic con-men who are incapable of experiencing fear, then detainment probably doesn't do much to deter similar crimes. I am not convinced that is an accurate representation of psychopaths though, and I certainly don't think all con-men are psychopaths anyway. Detaining Madoff probably does serve to deter similar crimes.

The question I have is if there are other punishments besides imprisonment that could fill that roll.

Bernie is an interesting example for a number of reasons.

The likelihood of being caught is probably a bigger factor in deterrence than the severity of the punishment itself. White collar criminals probably get away with a lot of small crimes (I am guessing).

Madoff is a very extreme example because he was doomed to eventually be caught. But we can look at it the other direction and consider how many hundreds(?!?) of small and large crimes did he get away with before it all collapsed on him?

He was most certainly not "doomed to be caught" in his lifetime. As you say, he's probably been crooked his entire working life, yet enjoyed a very successful and lucrative career, and was busted only at the age of 70. Plenty of "lucky" criminals die of natural causes before being busted.

I think you overestimate our ability to prevent him from running another scam. As the old wisdom goes, there's a sucker born every minute

I'm sure there would still be people who would give him their money (likely less-than-honest people themselves, knowing he was a con-man and hoping to get in on the game). What I mean though is that obviously all of his finances would be closely monitored (you could probably forbid him from actually being in charge of them), everything would be constantly audited. If he so much as bought a new Honda Accord, it would be taken, sold, and the proceeds would go to pay back his debts.

Basically, just like he isn't allowed to run a business or manage his own finances now, when he is in prison, he wouldn't be able to while outside either. Literal prison walls don't really add that much to our ability to control those things.

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