At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

Re:At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more ... by abecedarius on Friday March 22, 2019 @06:48PM (#19467678)

Your “if lucky” was, iirc, the much more frequent outcome. Now in the US if you come to the attention of a prosecutor, you get threatened with decades of prison in order to be plea-bargained down to something less horrendous. Formally these codes are very different, but the substance in both is people kept in line by dire threats that are mostly just held in reserve.

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Re:At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more ... by NeedMoreTea on Friday March 22, 2019 @07:41PM (#19467988)

Actually it mostly wasn't. It eventually became the more frequent outcome at the end of the 17th century, as the profession - like juries - signalled their dissatisfaction with the laws. There were something ridiculous like 200 capital offences.

It was laws falling into disrepute with both the profession and juries, and transportation becoming the majority that led to much of the 18th century legal reforms that removed nearly all the capital offences.

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