How is actually committing a crime and going to prison somehow worse than being wrongfully accused and affected for life?

Well, first of all it's a matter of numbers. Maybe hundreds of people's lives has been affected by being accused of a crime and being judged by the public eye with a presumption of guilt (some of these people may be guilty, some may not).

However, hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from vastly over-exaggerated punishment for minor crimes. Even more, the current political climate suggests that some of what these people did should not have been illegal in the first place (e.g. Marijuana use and distribution). Worse still, there is discretionary, racist enforcement of many of these laws, disproportionately affecting some communities and not others.

Individually, suffering from being falsely accused of a crime is much worse than being punished excessively for a crime you did commit.

But overall, people losing jobs and status is a much smaller problem to society todyay than excessive enforcement of minor crimes.

The crime is irrelevant. The discussion is whether you are guilty or not as an individual. If you willing commit a crime (regardless of how you feel about the law) then you are rightfully punished.

The problem is when you're innocent and still get punished anyway.

Well, if you stole a pack of gum and are executed for it, that's still a problem, even though you're technically guilty.

And again, in the real world, there are maybe hundreds of people suffering public outrage even though they are innocent, and there are tens of thousands of people who are serving extremely harsh sentences for minor crimes. The first is regrettable, the second is a major societal issue.

If you're guilty then you can disagree with the sentencing but it doesn't change the fact that you did the crime. Being considered guilty (by the courts or public) when you're actually innocent is far worse.

The US justice system is built on this foundation of letting the guilty go if it means avoiding a single innocent from being wrongfully convicted. Now you might say that social outrage isn't a big deal but considering the permanent nature of the internet and pervasiveness of social media, it's the same branding as a ex-con, if not worse since govt records at least have some controls on who can see them.

I agree that criminal sentencing and prison reform is needed, but that's a different discussion compared to how we treat the innocent.

Impacts on life from prison that are independent of guilt or innocence? Now it may make them more /deserving/ but it would be worse for the guilty party.

Granted it may be better for society (may because nothing stops the law from being messed up) so the question is worse for who?

The entire question is about guilt, not prison. Being actually guilty is very different from being innocent.

We have no way of knowing that the police didn't plant the evidence to save face and justify the warrant. Shit like that's happened before. There are plenty of cases of people going to jail and being much, much later exonerated and there are cases of being framed by police. We don't know how many more people are rotting in jail who are completely innocent.

I mean, sure, it might not be likely, but the point is, these police were willing to do unscrupulous things to catch the guy, so how do we know?

That's beside the point. The parent comment was saying that being rightfully guilty is worse than being innocent and assumed guilty because they disagree with the severity of the crime.

To me, being innocent yet treated as guilty is far worse, and in fact the US justice system holds that as a core principle.

Agreed. People who willfully commit crimes know what they are doing is wrong and can get them in jail or worse. Those around them and before them have likely been caught before.

Let's agree that they're both bad.

>Getting rightly accused of possession of light drugs and ending up in prison is a much worse outcome, and it happens to many, many times more people.

Can we just agree that both are a perversion of our justice system?

Blackstone's formula, "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" was very influential do the people who designed our initial legal system. The reason it is important is that if innocent people believe they will be prosecuted unjustly, they have no incentive to stay innocent. This of course will turn us into a lawless society.

https://twistingtruth.wordpress.com/better-10-guilty-men-go-...

But public opprobrium for a presumption of guilt is not a part of the justice system.

Also, the prevalence of this problem you are raising is extremely small in reality. The opposite is still much more likely - people who are guilty of various crimes who escape unpunished both by the justice system but also from public scrutiny.

"University of Michigan law professor Samuel Gross led a team of experts in the law and in statistics that estimated the likely number of unjust convictions. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences determined that at least 4% of people on death row were and are likely innocent. Gross has no doubt that some innocent people have been executed.[18][19]"

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

It seems small unless you are one of the 4%, that's just direct affect to the individual and their family. The indirect effect to you and me is lawlessness.

"It is of more importance to the community that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished....when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, 'it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.' And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever"

- John Adams, Defending British soldiers charged with murder for their role in the Boston Massacre

For the record, I think it's a travesty that people get thrown in jail for petty crimes, or that petty crimes in general have become felonies, sold by politicians who want to appear "tough on crime." I don't think it serves either purpose to try to rank them.