What's wrong with prison for non-violent crime? For instance, if someone steals my car from a parking lot, I'm OK with them getting prison time, even if they didn't use violence to get my car.
Well in your case a fine and paying for damages. Repeat offenses maybe could constitute jail time. But wouldn't non violent crimes be better served by keeping the person out of the prison system with hardened criminals, further preventing a life of crime. In the end, is that better for taxes and society in general? I don't have all the answers, but in many cases prison for non-violent crimes (i.e. this JSTOR case or drug cases) are misguided and perpetuate the problem. Would you be happy if that person that stole your car was a first time offender and later found out he got caught up in a gang in prison and entered a life of crime? Or would you just collect your insurance, buy another car, and hope that there is some non-violent offender programs that could stop that, or that over time he could repay that to insurance? We have to change that I believe, or we can expect many more situations like the recent events. I hate even talking about the private prison system we have here that profits off of incarceration of non-violent crimes.
In Swartz's case, putting someone in prison that is contributing to society in exchange for locking them up for 30+k per year seems completely backwards, cruel and ancient thinking. A system that can create larger criminals easily from imprisonment of minor or non-violent actions. We should at least differentiate them better.
It's different for white collar crime. People stealing cars likely don't have much going on in their lives, and joining a gang might look to them like a viable way forward.
Martha Stewart was jailed for insider trading. Before, during, and after, she has a much more comfortable option for her life than to join a gang.
Because they only committed economic damage against you. It doesn't make sense to send someone to jail who only committed an economic or property crime because:
They stole from you and harmed you economically.
If they go to prison your tax dollars and the tax dollars of others must house them, pay for their care, etc so they are further harming you economically.
It would make more sense to have them provide restitution to you in some form. They should have to pay for:
Damage to the car (if the car still exists) + cost of you not having your car and any sort of issues arising from that (i.e. you were on your way to an interview, you came out of 7-Eleven and your car was gone, you missed your interview and now have no job, or some such) + interest on the previous two things they should have to pay for
If they destroyed the car in some manner then replace the first part of the equation with the cost of a replacement car of equal value.
Prison should be used when someone can cause harm that is permanent such as murder, rape, etc to prevent them from doing it again to someone else. If they harm is just economic in nature then that can be rectified and there is no sense in making everyone pay to house someone who did no permanent damage.
Further more as pointed out below, going to prison tends to make people come out worse criminals.
At least in the USA, prison rape statistics were not pleasant last time I checked. Nor is the rate of encountering or being around violence and/or intimidation. Not all prisons are as bad as others but non-violent offenders do always get options on where to go.
Most individuals put around constant violence or threat of such are permanently changed, an unpleasant/undesired change. So for may non-violent crimes many would consider prison a cruel punishment. At least with how US prisons are set up.
My understanding is that historically the "unusual" in "cruel and unusual" indicates unusual from everyday reasonable life. Constantly being around violence to an extent it changes the average individual permanently is unusual for every day reasonable life in the USA at least.
cruel:
(1) willfully causing pain or suffering to others, or
feeling no concern about it;
(2) causing pain or suffering
Intentionally causing bankruptcy for someone (or freezing of their assets) while also threatening them with jail times wildly disproportional to the crime and damages caused by the crime in order to extort a guilty plea before you prove them guilty in a court of law is cruel. Doing so is the willful causing of mental pain or suffering of another human being. If you've ever known another person in the U.S. that has been wrongly convicted of a crime, you'd think it was a cruel system as well. It is especially cruel to those least capable of handling emotional pain.
