Sentenced to life imprisonment for trying to steal hedge clippers.

[Gaaz]

I guess when Marcus Aurelius was saying that, he did not have to deal with corporate crime as much. Also, law was a little different back then to say the least. To paraphrase him by today's standards would be something along the lines of "poverty is the mother of "hands on", "violent" and direct "person to person" crime". As a rule of thumb, we do not normally see rich people mugging in dark alleys or breaking into people's houses. Also, these waves of rioting we see lately are not because of extra disposable income people do not know what to do with. Make people feel like sh*t and they will try making everyone around feel like sh*t just to get even. That is almost biblical.

[Unholyground]

His second chances should have been spent getting help instead of stealing. A career criminal is a career criminal, why bring up race?

The problem is the government needs to begin providing free rehabilitation and living facilities for those who want to correct their lives. Without a system in place to properly help someone reform they will almost always be doomed to live a life of crime, both due to restrictions placed upon them by the government themselves which will make finding gainful employment almost impossible for most. The government is hurting everyone but more so those individuals of color or those not of the preferred religions of the USA.

In Canada we have a big problem with first nation genocide, it has been going on for years and much of our government has tried to hide it and we are all finally starting to see it now.

We have problems, lets all push to fix them at their roots instead of using Band-Aids that eventually break down/tear and leave the injury in a worsened state.

[Easo]

some of the most notorious criminals in my town are rich people... one got an employee killed by willingly violating safety regulations... stayed out of prison... one hit a couple while drunk driving, he claimed his car was stolen and it wasn't him driving... stayed out of prison... one dumped toxic waste from his industry in nature... stayed out of prison... the son of one of the richer people assaulted someone with his friends at a club for "looking at him the wrong way" and stayed out of prison...

another guy, not rich but not poor either got his friends and went home to a guy and tried to kill him because he had been flirting with his girlfriend earlier during the day...

you going to tell me they did this because they're poor?

Again, word average and your subjective experience are different things. The rich people hate is ridiculous sometimes.
Poverty drives the petty theft crimes...

[Felya]

it isnt lol... some of the most notorious criminals in my town are rich... they have gotten people killed or hurt for life and still not in prison...

They are notorious because they are only criminals by the name you call them, not the fact that they are convicted.

- - - Updated - - -

you going to tell me they did this because they're poor?

No, sensationalism isn’t the norm... you don’t have stories published about most crime...

[Mihalik]

it isnt lol... some of the most notorious criminals in my town are rich... they have gotten people killed or hurt for life and still not in prison...

That's a wild and intentional misunderstanding of the debate at hand, the perception of crime and the functioning of the justice system.

You can have a separate conversation about just what exactly do we perceive as a threat to society and how do we punish that, but that's a whole different conversation.

White collar crime, wage theft, major financial crimes and graft are already illegal, but we have a fundamental society wide problem with actually grasping the consequences of these forms of crime, even tho, they are often way more damaging than petty crime.

The perception problem has layers upon layers, one is that the average Joe often sees things like corruption, graft, tax evasion, money laundering and whatnot as victimless crimes. People don't feel personally harmed like they would if someone stole 100 bucks from their wallets, even tho in abstract, that's exactly what is happening to them.

Another layer is that of the power that wealth provides to change perceptions. In our weird lizard brains we can't help ourselves from giving deference to someone who shows up in 10000 dollar suit escorted by a personal army of 500 dollar an hour attorneys using big words and slick legalities.

There are many more layers to this.

Ultimately what we as a society "see" as crime is not your boss making you do 100 hours of unpaid overtime a year but the loser who stole a pair of 30 dollar hedge clippers.

That's why crime of the latter category is the one the quote "Poverty is the mother of crime" applies to.

You either haven't wrapped your brain around these complexities yet, and how the quote even highlights the injustice in how we perceive crime, or you are intentionally engaging in semantic bullshit for the sake of it.

You really do a lot of this semantics bullshit.

[vergasiv]

So how many 2nd chances should we give him? He's a career criminal and the streets are safer without him. Not losing any sleep over this one

[tehealadin]

Steal hundreds/thousands? Life in prison. Steal billions? Too big to jail.

Fixed that for you.

This for me gets to the crux of things. I'd have an easier time with this if I felt the law was applied equally. Are there many here who honestly thinks that this is the case? The 2008 financial crash was such a colossal demonstration of this.

That being said, there has to be consequences for a career criminal, even if it is largely non violent, if you have your rights violated there should be legal recourse, I am certainly not one of those people who think "oH iTs jUsT tHeFt bOoHoO", it certainly isn't rape or murder, but it also isn't nothing, and I do believe that after a point you should be expected to be responsible for your actions. You can't blame the system or the man all your life.

However this seems extreme and not proportional. There has to be a better way to deal with people like that. Don't get me wrong- I am not saying he is just some victim and his wellbeing should be the primary or sole focus (though I am not saying it should be ignored either), after a point I think it is perfectly reasonable to tell someone to get out of their own way and get a grip of their life, plenty of people get dealt a bad hand and don't behave like this. Just not convinced that life imprisonment is the way to go about it.

[Darsithis]

Those are just the crimes he was caught doing. Who knows what else he has done.

You don’t convict or sentence based on what some one could have done, only on what you have evidence they have done.

This situation is ridiculous.

[Templar 331]

You don’t convict or sentence based on what some one could have done, only on what you have evidence they have done.

This situation is ridiculous.

Did I say to convict him for crimes he might have done? No. So don't put words in my mouth. I understand how the justice system works.

My point being that a repeat offender tends to commit crimes that he hasn't been caught doing. Much like a rapist doesn't stop with just one victim. It's habitual. So I have no sympathy for someone caught multiple times.