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Re:End Mass Incarceration Now by sobkas on Sunday May 25, 2014 @08:44PM (#7798197)
Because a drunk driver thinks how many years will he spend in prison for causing an accident and killing people and not thinking that nothing will happen because no one will catch him?
Re:End Mass Incarceration Now by dandrews on Sunday May 25, 2014 @09:00PM (#7798236)
I don't understand your question.

My point was that sentence guidelines should generally be data-driven, the dependent variable being the crime rate for a specific offense. I did not mention edge cases, judicial discretion, capital offenses, recidivism, rehabilitation, and other gnarly stuff.

Re:End Mass Incarceration Now by sobkas on Sunday May 25, 2014 @10:30PM (#7798432)
My point is: did criminal made a decision to commit a crime based on facts and rational tough or he made it based on other factors. Was he even capable of doing so(drunk driver, ideological driven crimes). Did he considered the length of sentence, when his goal is to not get caught and not minimising the time of incarceration?

Does in your example crimes with lower rate of catching criminals will end with a very high sentences and few caught will get an unreasonable jail times? "You have pirated a song, an infinity in jail is Your sentence"

"Data-driven" is a reasonable approach, but what data should be allowed to drive? Choosing what kind of data to use and making relevant conclusions from it is the hard part.

Re:End Mass Incarceration Now by YZF on Sunday May 25, 2014 @10:54PM (#7798488)
Yes. Surprise! People are not rational.

Anyways, the data is in. Putting more people in prison for longer doesn't work. The problem though is that in the short term reversing this policy without any other policy changes may not work either. People aren't as simple as that.