It's possible that a high enforcement rate with diminished penalties would be more effective than the current approach of rare enforcement and harsh penalties. Hardly anyone thinks that it's "worth it" to pay a fine for dumping trash on the side of the road. Dumpers just assume -- cynically but correctly -- that the chances of being caught are negligible at present. Or for another example, consider people who don't come to a complete stop before making a turn unless they know that the intersection has a camera. They're not incapable of following the rules of the road, or undeterred by penalties. They're just not going to follow the rules unless the rules are consistently enforced.

> Hardly anyone thinks that it's "worth it" to pay a fine for dumping trash on the side of the road. Dumpers just assume -- cynically but correctly -- that the chances of being caught are negligible at present.

I know it's not the point you were trying to make but people dump trash because it's easier/cheaper than getting rid of it the "right way". Where I grew up there was one scrap place that only took non-ferrous metals and the towns all charged $20-$50 to dispose of it at the dump (scrap metal is usually something you get paid for, not pay to get rid of). Likewise washing machines and refrigerators and whatnot adorned highway rest stops and the ends of dead end roads. Then a real scrap place that took ferrous metals opened up and not only did the existing dumped stuff vanish but you never saw one again.

Point is that there's a class of petty crimes that are like video piracy, people wouldn't do it if the "right" thing was cheap and convenient enough.

I agree with you. It's also a relative matter of cheap and convenient. If it's a consistently-enforced $100 fine for dumping and $50 to dispose of it properly, hardly anybody is going to dump illegally. Even if their trash is bulky and worthless (like a soiled mattress) rather than bulky and useful, like scrap metal.

My state raised its littering penalties 16 years ago:

https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/2003/07-31/215440_fin...

Up to $1025 for throwing a cigarette out a car window. Up to $5000 if you dump more than a cubic yard of trash!

But I still regularly find roadside cigarettes and even spot drivers tossing them, because it's still rarely enforced. It's a huge roulette wheel with an unreasonably low chance of ever landing on 0 and an unreasonably high penalty if someone ever does. I think that we would get much better compliance overall, without the risk of occasionally ruining a low-income person's life, if the cigarette-littering penalty were only $20 but most incidents could actually be penalized.

In the not too distant future, we may see proactive arrests based on an AI determined probability of committing a crime e.g. minority report.

The best way for governments to get society to their surveillance nirvana is one shortly-lived, outrageous privacy violation at a time. The same way you eat an elephant.

Regarding jails being expensive, isn't this a result of the profit motivation for incarceration that remains in many states (in the US particular, but also abroad)?

"The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports."[1]

[1] https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-uni...

Additionally, new sorts of crime will be enabled with new technology. As well as new means of evasion.

You can think of various ways to fast track justice for small crimes, similar to small claims court. You don't need a jury trial for an obvious bike theft.

But you don't even need to get to this stage. If you have 99% conviction rate, people will just stop doing crime, starting with the ones for which crime was just a marginal thing anyway (maybe even for the adrenaline rush), and as a result you'll have even fewer crimes to prosecute. It's a positive feed-back loop.

And you don't need to put people in prison. Something like China's social credit is coming everywhere. Steal a bike, you pay double for everything.

You make a compelling case, and at first it's terrifying, but then I know we humans are always terrified of change no matter what it is (e.g. 'music is dead' at the arrival of recorded sound), and also I wonder if we overpraise the 'natural order' of human behaviour as opposed to future potential worlds.

I am a freedom-fighter, yes, and I hate conformity, yes, but the current evolutionary survivalness of humans is also very ugly. (E.g. the selfish drive to steal a bike.) I don't have a solution, just thinking openly.

> If you have 99% conviction rate, people will just stop doing crime

You should take a look at DAs conviction rates sometime. Federal conviction rates are 99.8% in the US.

I’m not sure what the denominator is there, but it’s not all crimes committed.

It's all criminal cases that went before a judge.

Japan's conviction rate is 99.9%. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/c05401/order-in-the-c...

That's because they only arrest guilty people.

Aka they always convict arrested people.

But of course.

> If you have 99% conviction rate, people will just stop doing crime

Do you have any information to support this claim?

> While a stolen bike probably isn't that valuable, what matters is that in most places, there's basically no chances that you will be caught.

> And I'm not kidding about the absence of enforcement and low risk of stealing bikes. Here's a NYT journalist filming himself stealing his own bike in New York City to see how people who see him will react. You gotta see this to believe it. He even uses powertools and does it near cops.

https://www.treehugger.com/bikes/underworld-economics-what-h...