i once heard someone say “prison is for people who steal hundreds, not millions”. this is an exception that there’s even any sentence for the top one.
We finally found evidence of something trickling downwards. Or pouring down, rather.
Tbf, sounds kinda like the homeless man wanted to get caught, maybe for the free rent.
Yeah, that wasn’t remorse. That was not wanting to live on the streets and being desperate to have a consistent amount of food.
Y’all are making a lot of assumptions none of which involved asking if this man was wrongfully imprisoned.
The homeless guy? He was definitely wrongfully imprisoned. There are plenty of homeless people in locations with poor social safety nets who commit petty crimes to get a roof to sleep under for a while. But the prosecutors and cops get to inflate their numbers so they’re more than happy to throw the book at someone who can’t defend themselves.
You have completely changed the subject. You and the other user said he probably did this on purpose to get food and shelter.
I firmly believe he did. Otherwise he would have stolen more than $100 and wouldn’t have turned himself in. A lot of homeless folks at shelters will commit petty theft and turn themselves in if their time is up or if there are no beds left, especially during extreme heat in places like Texas and Louisiana with poor social safety nets.
You’re the one that brought up the question of wrongful imprisonment so I spoke to that. I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear enough for you, I was trying to speak to your specific concern.
Yes, he was wrongfully imprisoned no matter the motive. $100 ain’t worth that much time, or, honestly, any real time. He was likely looking for a few days to a few weeks of three squares and a cot. Instead he’s sitting in the hoosegow for a decade with time off for good behavior which will make it that much harder for him to get out of his situation and, on top of the gross injustice by people who paint themselves as fiscal conservatives, it’ll cost more than a properly functioning social safety net would have cost to get him housed, fed and back to being part of society where he could be comfortable.
I have a lot of feelings about this that are hard for me to articulate. There are a lot of subjects to cover here. It starts with how shitty we treat the homeless, moves to what some of the homeless have to do just to survive, and ends with how we’re throwing away money just to keep someone down for the rest of their damn life.
It’s possible =/= it happened that way. You have no evidence this was a choice. The reasonable assumption is he did not expect 15 years for $100
This is going to sound like I’m being shitty, but I promise this question is genuine because I really feel like I’m missing something.
Is your issue the original language I used when making the assumption about his motive?
They covered him not expecting 15 years.
He was likely looking for a few days to a few weeks of three squares and a cot.
I don’t think anyone expects 15 years over an unarmed robbery of $100 because it’s completely disproportionate.
Imagine living in a country where you need to steel a bank in order to get the chance for shelter and food, albeit with no freedom anymore.
The way we treat our vulnerable is sick.
Yeah. No wonder they threw the book at him.
I mean come on, who is really the one more deserving of punishment here: the fine upstanding job creator who had a small and momentary lapse of judgement, or the clearly bootstrap-deficient monster who – after choosing to be poor – doesn’t have the moral fortitude to live on the streets like he should?
I think the right answer here would be to sell the guy to the upstanding job creator. The creator gets to prove how upstanding he is. The feckless man with no bootstraps gets a place to stay. Everybody wins! How lovely and compassionate that world would be.
But surely you can’t be suggesting that the homeless man should be housed for free, so that someone who has contributed so much to society has to bear the costs?
Maybe we should let the free markets decide: first, the criminal should sign a completely voluntary contract which specifies that his new owner is entitled to assign to him any work they deem a suitable compensation for his upkeep during his sentence (not signing the contract or shirking work duties leads to a doubling of the sentence and immediate transfer to an isolation cell for the remainder of his sentence), then put him up for auction and sell him to the highest bidder
Well that’s it. We’ve solved homelessness once and for all.
You are showing your innocence.
Right. Even if we assume that’s the case it only explains one guy getting a harsh sentence. It doesn’t explain the guy with a way harsher crime not getting a harsh sentence.
Think of it this way. If the other guy had robbed the bank empty, just for the sake of the argument he stole 3 billion, and he didn’t turn himself out do you think he should’ve gotten 40 months?
40 months is slightly less the six years in the same way my pay check is slightly less than my CEOs
Yeah… Really bending the definition of “slightly” there. It would be far more accurate to day “slightly more than three years”.
Impressive. Very nice. Let’s see Paul Allen’s sentence.
Let’s see him get a reservation at the Dorsia now, the stupid fucking bastard.
Remember - they didn’t throw Martin Skhreli into rich-guy’s prison because he caused thousands of people to die by raising the prices on lifesaving medicines out of reach of poor folk… no, no, no, they threw him into rich guy’s prison because he embezzled some of his fellow rich parasites’ money.
The way it looks is the way it is.
Fuck the poor, get rich
Fuck the rich, go to prison.
I might get in trouble for this, but if I ever see Skhreli in person, I’ll do my best to make sure his nose lays flat across his cheek. He’s a garbage being that’s less than rats
Make sure to use a blunt instrument - you don’t want to be touching that toxic thing with your bare hands.
Boxing gloves protect your hands and allow you to hit harder. Doubly so if you’re holding a roll of quarters in each palm
I’ve been told a sock full of oranges doesn’t leave a bruise
I think the issue with the homeless guys it was possible armed robbery and he probably had priors, so its not an insanely long sentence for what he did.
Someone posted the snopes. It calls into question a bunch of assumptions you’re making.
Calling things into question doesnt mean much. Stories like these 99% of the time are misleading.
yeah priors, i bet this wasn’t the first time he was hungry that piece of shit. these fucking poors always going like “I’m hungry, I’m hungry” like open your fridge dude. mine’s always full of food and I’m not robbing banks to eat. easy life.
Strawman
not a strawman, I’m saying in a corrupt system that leaves people penniless and homeless and then punishes them for daring to fend for themselves, “priors” doesn’t mean shit. it just means the guy was probably forced to do this before because people usually get hungry more than once in a lifetime.
they gave him piles of money and he only took 100 bucks because he was literally just hungry. that’s not a bad guy, that’s a guy desperately trying to stay barely alive.
You have a cartoonish understanding of crime and economics. The system doesnt get people to this point, they system just steals from everyone and makes us poorer, it doesnt make you do crime. You can blame how he was raised on this, and I would bet there is a long string of things this guy has done that are bad.
the fact that you say this stuff and tell me I have a cartoonish understanding of crime is just fabulous. no notes.
Thank you!
The guy turned himself in he felt so bad for stealing $100 from a bank. I don’t think that’s a sign of a bad dude raised poorly.
But the fact he got 15 years for it is a sign that he hasnt led a good life up until then. These stories are all the same, when you look into it a little, the guy has a history of things, or the whole thing is misleading.
they system just steals from everyone and makes us poorer, it doesnt make you do crime.
Ah yes the free choice of humbly accepting being robbed and starving to death. Very popular among understanders of crime and economics.
How many people starve to death in the US each year due to lack of access to food?
The first time I saw this picture, I was in middle school. It may well have been my first introduction to politics and started me down the path of leftism in general. Over a decade later and nothing’s changed.
It costs what $30k a year to keep someone in prison? Great use to taxpayer money for that $100 theft.
It unironically is a great use of money, if it wasn’t they wouldn’t do it. Prison Labor is basically slavery, and just as absurdly profitable, plus private prisons make more money with more inmates and can lobby as such.
A great use of money to whom is the question. Varies wildly depending on your perspective.
Sure, but money exists to benefit the ones holding Capital. The system itself supports and reinforces profit above all else, as such, it’s a great use of money for Capitalists.
If you mean that it’s unethical and negative for the health of society, of course, I agree entirely. We can’t solve this problem outright without transitioning to Socialism.
Oooofff… So close until you replaced liberal cult ideology with tankie cult ideology.
Socialism is “tankie cult ideology?”
I would advise you to read some books (like actual books, not a YouTube video essay about a book) about socialism because it seems to be something very different than you think.
Well, mainly it’s about funnelling taxpayer money into the hands of the prison industrial complex cause most states don’t go quite so hard on the prison labor
It’s a positive feedback loop built off of human suffering. Private Prisons lobby for more slave labor, making the Capitalist State more money, while the Prison Industrial Complex gets more money for imprisoning more people, and more slave labor to sell cheap commodities.
While a 15 year sentence is definitely too high, it’s important to acknowledge that there is a difference between a bank robbery and fraud.
Yeah, the difference is one’s an honest, victimless crime.
Neither of the crimes is honest nor victimless.
homeless man
He honestly needed money
banks make their money by preying on the poor, and are insured against theft
Victimless
Homeless guy shoulda stolen $3b instead of just $100 🤷🏻♂️
The homeless man understands the actual value of money which is why he felt remorse.
Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/homeless-man-vs-corporate-thief/
It’s true, but note that Allan received a reduced sentence for testifying against the actual mastermind of the fraud, who got 30 years.
Twice as long as the homeless man, yes.
The difference in dollars and impact though, and considering who turned themselves in… It’s still an egregious sentence for $100.
you can’t easily or directly compare the monetary value of violent vs non-violent crime. Robbery is not about the money from a severity perspective. Any robbery will be much more heavily punished than a theft of the same monetary value due to the violence or threat of violence agaist the person or people.
If you stick a gun in someones face and ask them for one cent, you still should be going to jail for a decent amount of time - way more than shoplifting a 500 dollar tv.
15 years does seem a lot though, you might have expected them to at least wave the weapon around, or put it direct to someones head, or put a knife to the throat - that doesn’t seem to be the case here. but if it were less than 5 , I’d think they’d got off lightly for robbery.
The homeless guy should have shoplifted food from grocery store - not gone and threatened someones life.
It wasn’t the amount - It was the “who” that the homeless person robbed. He didn’t steal from a local liquor store or 7/11. He robbed from a bank. And bank robbery, since the time there have been banks to rob from, has always carried certain heavy punishments. And the punishments are well known to even a homeless person. And very often the judge gets no choice or leeway in the sentencing.
And the punishments are well known to even a homeless person.
The bootlicking condescension is strong here.
And TB&W also stole from banks through fraud.
The judge isn’t the issue being called out, the laws and associated punishments are.
So… yes. And my point stands.
So him defrauding millions of times more than what that 15-year sentence guy stole is less bad because the fraudster also snitched on an even bigger fraudster?
I think that isn’t an issue. The issue is the clearly disproportionate punishment of 15 years for 100 dollars.
A few years for fraud especially you helped the catch more fraudsters is fine.
15 years for something that won’t cover a night out is fucking wrong.
In most circumstances the dollar amount does matter. The titles are cherry picked. The 100 dollar theft wasnt from a convenience store, he robbed a bank. Is your argument that it was such a bad bank robbery that we shouldnt punish the guy? What about criminal history?
Dramatizing the facts does not help make the point, it makes it less resilient. The situation is already lopsided if we just take the simple facts of what happened, but the titles of these articles are not that.
Trying t8 defend the US justice system is a bold fucking move.
You do knowing about three strikes laws and mandatory minimums right?
There are people serving life sentences for stealing food while most white collar crime, even when convicted, don’t get much jailtime at all. Usually fines, or parole or house-arrest in their mansions.
Sometimes a non-violent felony also counts as a third strike, which thus would result in a disproportionate penalty., Three-strikes laws have thus also been criticized for imposing disproportionate penalties and focusing too much on street crime rather than white-collar crime.
The US manufactures crimes so it can legally enslave the poor people. Because slavery is still legal in the US, as long as the slaves are convicted criminals.
That’s genuinely propping up a significant portion of the US economy; slave labour from prisons which are filled up with all kinds of excuses.
The wealthy ‘make mistakes’, the poor go to jail
Pretending you don’t understand this is the reality of the situation is making me question your humanity.
Well you just keep on pushing people away with your exaggerations. My second favorite part is where you assume any critique must mean I support the current system.
Read better. I said this is already a great example of inequality without obfuscating details. Since it stands on its own merits, any efforts to exaggerate either way is reducing the effectiveness of your message. Honesty is important.
Read more and stop licking the boots of your oppressors.
Why We Let White-Collar Criminals Get Away With Their Crimes
How white collar criminals get away with it
Is white-collar crime treated more leniently in the US?
How They Got Away with It: White Collar Criminals and the Financial Meltdown
Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Crime, and Criminal Justice
“Cherrypicking”
Are we really defending headlines in articles now?They always are missing nuance, as a rule. All I said was its important not to exaggerate. After reading all the details its still absurd.
I’m saying headlines like that can push people away as much as it can grab them. I generally dont like headlines that are designed to invoke a certain emotional response.
I dont want to discuss how this makes people feel, I want to discuss the details and why things are the way they are, so we can go about trying to fix them.
And you can save the links, although I do enjoy the reading, cause like I said I already agree with your position: its not just or fair or equal or any of that.
Absolutely agree, you’re preaching to the choir
End Stage Capitalism: “Laws for thee (the poor), not for me (the wealthy).”
That’s regular Capitalism, end-stage is when Capitalism reaches out internationally to dominate less developed countries with predatory loans (like from the IMF) and exporting Capital to produce goods for far lower wages than you would domestically.
Are you trying to imply that the US doesn’t already do this? They’ve overthrown democratically elected governments all over the latin americas (and other places, like hawaii) and imposed more fascist ones for access to their raw materials. Sure it’s not exactly using loans to do that, but the real end-game is fascism anyways once markets are fully saturated and there are no more ways to generate capital.
