in general we should be a lot more strict on sexual crimes (sa, trafficking, child abuse but not voluntary prostitution) and white collar/economic ones including wage theft, but less strict on drugs and property. drug possession and non commercial digital piracy should be decriminalized.
violent crimes are mostly in the right place, the big problem there is racist prosecutors and ineffective anti gang programs not the laws themselves but we need to remove death penalty/life without parole everywhere they still exist.
the point is we need a rebalance not a whole new untested mechanic.
What do you think the chances of being caught shoplifting is? If it's less than 50-33%, then you have the same problem as the OP where it makes sense to shoplift.
Don't we already? Police and DAs at least here in California are not serious about punishing shoplifters AFAICT. I hear people say this is specifically because of the 2014 Proposition 47 (raising the threshold for felony theft from $400 to $950). Not sure that's true (misdemeanor theft can still be punished by up to six months of jail time and/or up to a $1,000 fine, and California's current thresholds are similar to other states) but there was a federal mandate to address prison overcrowding, and California chose to do that by not having as many prisoners instead of building a ton more prisons. Prop 47, and perhaps some policy changes made with far less fanfare, were intended to achieve that.
There's still more deterrent for misdemeanor shoplifting than for nationwide egg price-fixing though!
So clearly we should... make it even more lenient? That's what OP was implying.
I think the current situation is not great, but I'd want to fix it by investigating why we're seemingly unable/unwilling to impose the punishment currently on the books. I think it would be plenty if we did—to me, more than six months jail time for stealing <$950 would be excessive. We could increase the fines and decrease / take away the jail option, but does it matter? It's not happening anyway.
Why? I mean, do you have a specific scientific research in mind, or is it something you feel is right?
I mean, it makes sense to me, mostly, but "we should" presented without any evidence irks me a bit.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich...
You really shouldn't need a citation for something so easily verifiable.
They absolutely get to pick!
https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-1-part-i-chapter-...
"“Prosecutorial discretion” is the authority of an agency charged with enforcing a law to decide whether to enforce, or not to enforce, the law against someone. USCIS, like other law enforcement agencies, has prosecutorial discretion and exercises it every day. In the immigration context, the term applies not only to the decision to issue a Notice to Appear (NTA), but also to a broad range of other discretionary immigration enforcement decisions."
2) prosecutors can tell police straight up what they will or won’t prosecute, which affects what crimes cops will investigate or make an arrest for
> The pervasive problems with racism in our criminal justice system has been clear. Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at nearly five times the rate of white Americans.
> The systemic racism in the system starts before the first contact and continues through charging decisions, plea deals, conviction, sentencing recommendations, incarceration, release and beyond.
why do we need to jump to caning instead of increasing the fines to something more than an operating expense?
in this case, if the fine was 1000x the profits instead of the other way around, the problem would be solved, right?
At least if you set fines to a level that such crimes are rarely if ever profitable, you can both remove the incentive for the organization to commit them as well as introduce a passive internal mechanism to prevent them in the first place.
i am more pushing back against the call for corporal punishment like caning
Corporal punishment is laughable outright, but that's masking the issue. Punishing corporations does not discourage the participants directly. The behavior will not change.
The companies should be liquidated still. That would put the incentives in the correct order.
If you are an owner with all the control, i.e. you are on the board or in corporate leadership(CEO/CFO/etc), then hey guess what,there is a really great cell here at the local prison just waiting for you, depending on how involved you were.
If you are an owner with little to no control, i.e. most shareholders that just vote for the board, etc. The assets would get liquidated, bond/debt holders would get paid back, and then anything left over would go to these shareholders.
This would incentivize shareholders to care more about what they are owning, this is a good thing. Even if it's pension funds and individual retirement accounts. This would get sorted pretty quickly as soon as the new normal is known and adjusted for.
SpaceX for example just went public, but if you read the docs, the control was not given to the public. Elon Musk 100% controls SpaceX still. Even if every public shareholder unanimously agrees against Elon Musk, guess what happens? Elon Musk still gets his way.
I don't know what the parent comment was thinking, but to my mind, the ones with the most control get the worst of the consequences. So Pension Funds/etc that hold little to no control would get paid out before those with more control.
Pushing 401k and IRA, making it so that's the only viable way (other than having a high-6-digit wage) to live comfortably in retirement, is a detriment to a healthy society.
The people with better ROI are just going to outbid the ones with a worse ROI for their retirement spending so if you just invest it into T-Bills you'll do worse than inflation.
Not sure what the penalty for doing things you weren't incorporated for but seems reasonable for me that the liability doesn't rest with the corporation.