International Law

White Collar Criminals are Criminals

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Do you feel sorry for criminals that have used compliance techniques instead of force to you rob you?

Are con criminals somehow less dangerous, not deserving of jail time?

Well the famous author John Grisham apparently thinks that con criminals are not deserving of jail time.

"WSJ: So what do you think of these long white-collar sentences we've been seeing?

Grisham: It's bad stuff. We have 2.5 million people in prison in this country. We're not thinking. We're warehousing these young black kids, we grind them through the mill for minor drug charges - or even, you know, more serious drug charges - and we spend $40,000 a year to incarcerate them.

But we spend only $8,000 a year to educate them.

We're not using our heads. It's costing a fortune and nobody's talking about it.

And the white-collar guys, they don't deserve prison.

They deserve punishment.

They deserve to be financially punished.

But what is going to come from putting someone like Bernie Madoff or Marc Dreier or Dickie Scruggs in prison?

You ought to say, OK, start a non-profit and run it for ten years.

Make them do something good because they're smart as hell.

Of course, no politician is ever going to get elected by talking about lighter sentences for criminals."

Make them do good because they're smart as hell!!

How about instead let them rot in jail wondering exactly how useful their smarts were.

The sooner we get over our prejudice that compliance crimes are somehow less violent than armed robbery, the closer we will be to dealing with fraud in an appropriate manner.

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on January 28, 2009 (boomark / email).