What are the 84% that aren't in open prison? Poor people who don't have a corporate apparatus to hide their crimes behind?
Volkswagen emissions killed people with smog. VW are homicidal.
Corruption is a real problem in Germany and auto makers have a lot of influence on politicians, so the corporate and the political apparatus are interested in hiding these crimes, because a large part of our economy depends on them.
Re:Voltswagen of America
by headmelted on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @04:46AM
(#26644900)
Pretty disappointing that my comment above was a wild and utterly uninformed guess that was (from what you're saying here) bang on the money.
Turns out that it's almost universally true everywhere that enough wealth and power puts you above the law.
Re:Voltswagen of America
by TedDoesntTalk on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @08:11PM
(#26642089)
Meanwhile we hear how abusive and inhumane American prisons are. If we had these country clubs in America, what would happen? (Serious question)
It's not that unusual in Germany, at any time about 16% of prisoners are in "offener Vollzug", and it is a great tool to reintegrate prisoners into society. It is limited to first offenders with no flight risk and no risk that they use their time out of prison to do crime.
Of course no matter how useful of a tool it is generally, it does make the prison sentences of some well known people look like a bit of a joke.
1: https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfinfo-doku/knast-in-deuts...