General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Some of the January 6th defendants have offered been negotiated pleas to misdemeanors with no [View all]Effete Snob
(8,387 posts)Is the effect on one's life of being "in the system."
First, these deals have monitoring conditions that last a while. If any of these people steps out of line, or is even pulled over for a routine traffic violation, their probationary status pops up.
These kinds of things dog a person for a long, long time.
In most instances, it has an effect on their behavior. Most people do not want to go through the ringer again, or have their deal revoked and be penalized for what they are required to admit in order to get the deal.
That makes sense to people whose idea of a criminal justice system is oriented toward one that attempts to "get people to behave lawfully."
But there are certainly a lot of people - including people who think of themselves as more liberal-leaning - whose primary guiding principle is "punish bad people" instead of "attempt to influence behavior".
The "punish bad people" thing is also evident in the "ridicule people who die or are injured due to poor judgment or low intelligence" theme (aka "Darwin Award" ) which is common in many posts.
I believe that a lot of this sort of thing may derive from some sort of personal insecurity or frustration which manifests in a desire to see other people feel pain of some kind.