The co-founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX pleaded not guilty to a seven count indictment charging him with wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.
An attorney for FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried said in federal court Tuesday his client has to subsist on bread, water and peanut butter because the jail he’s in isn’t accommodating his vegan diet.
is jail really the best thing here? like does it serve society at all to lock this guy up?
Yes.
This guy stole billions of dollars in fraudulent crypto.
Not locking him up would be to admit the 2 tiered justice system exists. We all know it does. But this would admit it.
Also he did try to run. So… off to jail he goes.
locking him up won’t get anyone their money back. i don’t know what would be the right thing to do but i don’t see how keepin him in a cage helps anyone.
@commie @FuglyDuck
His bail was revoked because he was contacting witnesses.
Classic example of fuck around and find out.
The main thing is to dissuade people from doing what he did, right?
Fuck around and find out and all that.
If it has any actual use for anyone (e.g. separating dangerous people from society, taking stolen property/money back, preventing them from committing more crimes etc), that’s entirely unintentional.
It’s more about isolating him so he can’t do more harm.
shouldn’t those sorts of things be the actual goal of any “justice system”?
Of course, but we all know that’s not how it works out in practice (especially in America).
but that doesn’t work.
Of course it works. If you threaten someone with jail when they do X, then they are less likely to do X.
To take one example, several states have recently threatened doctors with jail if they perform abortions. As a result, obstetricians are now fleeing those states to avoid being prosecuted for performing their normal medical duties. If jail had no deterrent effect, then obstetricians would stay put and keep doing what they’ve always been doing, including performing safe abortions.
To take another example, several state have recently decriminalized marijuana, thus reduces the risk of jail for sale and possession. As a result, marijuana is more commonly consumed in public and far more commonly sold in public. If jail had no deterrent effect, there would be no change in the number of businesses selling marijuana.
if it worked then he wouldn’t have done it.
Something doesn’t have to be 100% effective to work.
Quitting smoking works to prevent cancer. That doesn’t mean it is 100% effective in preventing cancer.
so you think the solution to stop someone from doing something you don’t like is to put someone else in a cage. i just can’t do that. that’s wrong.
It’s called “justice” and in an ideal society it comes for everyone.
He commited billions of dollars worth of fraud. This was an intentional act. It might not “do any good”- but let me ask you, in a nation of laws, would allowing one that blatant to escape justice do any good? And what about the harm caused by signaling that Stanford-lawyer-parents means you’re immune to prosecution?
Lock him up. Give him his crappy budget-vegan-diet and let him serve as an example. (Even if only that example is to not steal from rich assholes.)
i don’t think justice is a vengeful spectre. i think it’s everyone feeling that wrongs have been righted, and i don’t see how locking him in a cage lets him right his wrongs.
hard to imagine how SBF is going to return 8 billion he hasn’t got.
hard to imagine how Floyd is going to get the same opportunity when he got choked out for 20 bucks. your sense of justice is tiered. Rich white guy? let him right wrongs! who cares that he’s ruined lives beyond recovery.
? when did you ask me about george floyd? where did you see me mention him? you don’t fucking know me.
Make him work in a sweatshop 16 hours a day until he can pay back everything he stole?
i don’t like slavery, either.
So don’t punish him at all? Just let him get away with it?
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i don’t really believe punishment is necessary, but surely there is something we could do to get him to help like… fix the problems he created for others.
I mean, I agree with the core of what you’re saying, but there’s a difference between believing in rehabilitation over punishment for someone who robbed a convenience store because they needed money to feed their baby, and someone who exhibited this degree of sociopathic behavior.
What would you propose we do to fix the problems he created? He could spend a lifetime paying it back bit by bit and still not be finished when he dies.
I don’t have the answer but I don’t see what good it does to lock him up
He stole millions of dollars and tried to ruin people’s reputations to save his ass in court and you think no punishment is necessary?
So he should be free to just do it all again?
I just don’t believe in punishment. I think that we could find another solution that actually helps people. we might even help him.
It’s interesting to me to meet someone wholly anti jail. I think our “justice system” is anything but, and at least that’s partially because we have a completely muddled idea about what we’re even trying to accomplish - mostly because of all these different opinions.
It seems pretty clear that our jails are “technically” just this side of cruel and unusual punishment as defined by our courts. But it’s all about punishment. Of course this assumes that retribution is a useful goal, and as you point out - it probably isn’t.
It’s also dubious that there’s any deterrence effect from jail sentences. Lots of people believe there is, but the studies I’ve seen don’t bear that out.
It’s also pretty clear that jail is expensive and just as likely to make criminals worse rather than better, so from a societal perspective, there’s a really good reason to re-think our justice system.
However, given our current system is about punishment and making victims and society at large feel better because “those who fucked around found out” - I would still prefer to see this guy get his to remind people we do in fact have laws and might enforce them.
Yes. Yes it does.
If you don’t, aren’t you just saying to the next con man that it’s okay, jail is too hard so you won’t actually get punished, might as well steal billions of dollars?
i don’t think he’s a malicious conman trying to swindle grandma out of her retirement: i think he’s a stupid guy who dug a whole way too fucking deep. and i don’t think we should put people in cages for being stupid.
Do you even know the case? If that dude isn’t a malicious conman, that phrase has no meaning.
not intimately, no. maybe i’m wrong. i still don’t think locking him in a cage fixes anything.
That’s a separate discussion, I just wanted to point out that in fact he did something similar to stealing grandma’s retirement funds, but on a much, much larger scale.
You think a guy who graduated from MIT and got a job at fucking Jane Street is “stupid”. No. His problem is the missing moral compass, he’s got the smarts all day.
i don’t know his biography and i haven’t followed the case very closely. maybe he is worse than i assumed. i still think it’s inhumane to lock people in cages.
Yeah you said that a few times on this thread. I think it’s a weird view in the case of people who are likely to continue to harm people (if like SBF they show no empathy or contrition) but sure.
Why are you so motivated to comment on the case if you haven’t followed it? Maybe just read and learn something.
I don’t like locking people in cages. so I decided to express that. it seemed topical.
are you arguing that he shouldn’t be sent to prison if he is found guilty? or that having him in jail until trial is a mistake?
the first one: yes, if he is found guilty, he definitely should be sent to prison. he is accused of committing fraud for billions of dollars.
for the second: yes. his bail was revoked because there was reasonable cause to believe he was attempting to tamper with witnesses
i don’t like jails at all. i think its wrong to put people in cages.
My understanding is that it’s a really shitty jail, so yes.
i don’t relish the idea of keeping people in cages and this guy in particular just seems stupid. i don’t think there is a good case to be made that inconveniencing him for weeks months or years does us any good, especially since maintaining jails is, itself, kind of inconvenient for us.
I’m personally of the opinion that it’s sadly necessary sometimes, but we definitely overuse it and it’s always a tragedy when things get to the point where it’s necessary.
Regardless of my opinion though, if you’re interested in this you should probably check out this bit from a textbook on criminal law talking about the theoretical justifications for punishment because lots of people have thought and written lots about this and you may as well pick up the terminology they tend to use.
e; also, these are the arguments you’re going to run into (pretty sure I see deterrence, retribution, and incapacitation theories in this thread)
i read the link and i decided i am NOT going to use that language. i don’t want to legitimize most of that shit.
Understandable. When I said “pick up the terminology” I meant in the sense of having the right words to search to find the academic articles in favor of against.
After seeing all their comments on this post, I don’t think this person is at the intellectual level of reading and comprehending academic arguments.
i think i’m ok with retribution, like a couple of brothers beating the shit out of their sister’s rapist, or shunning or whatever. but i don’t like the institution of prisons. we should figure something else out.
This article isn’t really addressing the mechanism for punishment, just the reasons why we do it. Like, whether it’s a couple of brothers or a taxpayer funded bureaucratic prison system, if we’re punishing someone just because we think they deserve it it’s retribution.
Beyond that, I feel like what you just described is actually just a step backwards from where we’re at currently. Like, why should people who aren’t privileged enough to have brothers not get the same kind of justice as people who do?
i imagine everyone has someone who would go to bat for them. it was just an example of ways that people organically take retribution which i am fine with
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think harder
if you have another perspective you can express it.
I’m not debating the merits of anything about him any more than I would for Bernie Madoff. If you’re unable to see for yourself already why SBF and people like him deserve the realization of actual punishment in jail and/or prison for obvious entitled fuckery and fraudulent behavior that contributed to devastating financial losses for others while they acted like millionaire douchebros in the Bahamas, then thought they’d get away with “sorry, I fucked up”, there’s nothing I can say to correct that. Off you go now.
you havent actually justified locking up con men.
Duh. To make an example of them to deter other con men from doing the same thing. Same as for drunk drivers who kill people with their cars. No further respect, debate or justification needed. Fuck them and you.
that doesn’t work, but i’m glad to see how empathetic you are
Our society locks up more than just dangerous criminals. And if you’re arguing against it there’s probably millions of people more deserving of more lenient charges than this guy.
no doubt. but this is the guy we’re talking about right now so i thought it was worth pointing out that jail is bad and we need to rethink that whole thing.