> If the defendant can force a jury trial for a misdemeanor, which is in fact quite costly for prosecutors, then the response is to raise the stakes with felony charges.

I'm not quite understanding this. What is there to be gained by raising the stakes? Doesn't it make defendants even more determined to seek justice?

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tialaramex 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Justice is unavoidably somewhat a "roll the dice" situation.

Suppose the threat is 10 years in Jail. You reckon there's a 1-in-a-million chance they can convict you since you're innocent and they have no evidence. The plea offer is $100 fine. That's a good deal, not taking it on principle is a stance I admire but it does not make good logical sense.

What the US needs is a strong incentive for prosecutors not to take cases they expect to lose. That wouldn't really fit with the rest of the US "justice" system though.

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wahern 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The sad thing is that speed in apprehension and prosecution has been shown to be the most important element by far for deterrence. Marginal deterrence effects of harsher sentencing for most crimes is basically nil at this point. The complexity of plea deals and the incentive they create for defense attorneys to drag things out breaks the perceived cause+effect dynamic, at least for typical criminals. The system just becomes this juggernaut where both guilty and innocent people alike feel it's utterly capricious.

At least until the recent tough-on-crime regression almost everybody agreed the system is too harsh. Even conservatives were on board with lighter sentencing. But unsurprisingly that broad public support didn't persist for long because the structural incentives of the system push it toward greater dysfunction. Without structural changes lighter sentencing alone just makes it more profitable for criminals to roll the dice. The complexity of the system evolved with the harsher sentencing, but can't change back as easily as sentencing policies, so we fall back to the old equilibrium that slowly gets worse along every dimension--fairness, cost, deterrence, etc.

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consensus1 3 hours ago | parent [-]

IMO low level offenses like shoplifting would be better served by a quick cheap ass kicking on the spot by the police with no charges filed. You get the deterrent effect without the massive waste of resources.

	▲	wahern 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Before the advent of the modern carceral approach that's not unlike what we had. You got flogged 3 times or stood in the stocks for a day. Though at least there was process--the sentence was imposed by a judge, not a cop. The benefit there was you weren't disappeared for days or months on end, completely destroying your life.

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opello 36 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

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