Year in Jail for Web Links

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, August 6, 2003, at 01:17  AM, Bill Stewart wrote:

> At 06:17 PM 08/05/2003 -0700, Eric Cordian wrote:
>> The problem here is that if you have a family and assets and
>> responsibility and something resembling a future, you cannot afford 
>> to be
>> the 1 in 100 who refuses to plea bargain,
>
> It's a rigged game, and the "20 years extra for terrorism"
> raises the stakes substantially from the usual
> "1 year if you plead, or 3-4 years if you fight and lose" deal.

They're also throwing sentencing enhancements in if guns are found.

"Use your Second Amendment rights and get an extra 20 years added to 
your sentence."

(Seems to be a pattern. Using either First or Second Amendment rights 
triggers a harsh sentence.)

The whole U.S. prison system is out of whack, economically. If a local 
community is responsible for imprisoning a convict, and had to feed and 
house him, there are some economic constraints that shine through. To 
wit, my little town of Corralitos isn't going to spend $40,000 a year 
to imprison a pot smoker. Nor is the larger city of Santa Cruz going to 
build a SuperMax prison to house a thousand people who have used drugs, 
talked about bombs, or sent spam mail. But since local communities 
don't pay for imprisoning their own people, it's a classic game theory 
situation where costs are delinked from choices.

It doesn't cause lawmakers anything to "get tough on crime" by adding 
"sentencing enhancements." In fact, they get to tell their constituents 
they have made the streets safer by taking those dangerous First 
Amendment radicals off the streets.

> (In my case, the plea bargain was "We'll drop the obviously bogus 
> charge
> if you stipulate that you don't have grounds to sue us",
> and given how the judge treated the other cops in his court,
> chickening out and taking it was probably the correct decision.)
>
>> It's one of those Prisoner's Dillema-ish situations.
>> The demonstration to the Sheeple that one cannot break the system
>
> No, it's *not* Prisoner's Dilemma.  The cops almost never have
> anything to lose by accepting a shorter sentence,
> except in highly publicized politically important cases,
> or by losing an occasional case, and their costs for going to trial
> are low enough that, while they save money by pleading out most cases,
> it's basically a minimal cost compared to the accused's costs.
> (The Prison Guards Union makes a bit less money on it,
> but it leaves them room to keep some drug user in jail a bit longer,
> and in any case it's not enough money to turn the game into
> the classic Prisoner's Dilemma.)

I was reading someplace that one of the main lobbying forces for "more 
laws" are some of the small towns in California, for example, which are 
suffering economically and think that having a big prison located near 
their town will "generate jobs." They lobby their local politicians for 
both more laws, tougher sentences, and a prison in their town.

The politicians put forward bills, recruit supporters ("you scratch my 
back and..."), and more spending happens. And more laws. And tougher 
sentences. And more prisoners. And more prisons. And more jobs. 
Everybody's happy, except California and the U.S. are deeply in debt, 
an historically high percentage of people are in "gladiator schools" in 
the state and country, taxes are way too high, and the Constitution has 
been shredded.

Whichever game theory theories apply, it's a mess. And a tragedy. And a 
common tragedy, even a tragedy of the commons.


--Tim May