Jail Time For Price-Fixing Car Parts 116
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Dept. of Justice has announced that Panasonic and its subsidiary Sanyo have been fined $56.5 million for their roles in price fixing conspiracies involving battery cells and car parts. The fines are part of a larger investigation into the prices of auto parts. Interestingly, 12 people at various companies have been sentenced to jail time, and three more are going to prison. Since the charges are felonies, none of the sentences are shorter than a year and a day. Criminal fines targeting these companies has totaled over $874 million. 'The conduct of Panasonic, SANYO, and LG Chem resulted in inflated production costs for notebook computers and cars purchased by U.S. consumers. These investigations illustrate our efforts to ensure market fairness for U.S. businesses by bringing corporations to justice when their commercial activity violates antitrust laws.'"
Prison is being misused (Score:4, Interesting)
I really think prison is being misused by most of the world, especially the United States.
I believe it should only ever be used to separate the most extremely, immediately, physically and irremediably dangerous from the rest of us to keep society safe. I'm talking about murderers, rapists, violent assailants, the kind of people who commit extreme acts and intend to keep doing them. Putting the drug dealers and possessors, scammers, petty thieves, civil disputers, drunks, the negligent and so on costs us more than benefits.
This euphemism of "paying your debt to society" by spending time in a cement box always elicits uproarious laughter from me ... how is someone paying their debt when we're the ones footing the bill for their room and board??
Prison should never be about "paying your debt", not that it's even possible in that manner. If we want people to "pay their debt", garnish their wages and have them pay back the *exact people against whom they committed the acts*. If that's not enough, put them in community service or other work programs, where they'll actually be performing work that will repay society, not cost it.
Of course, there are underlying societal problems (poverty, increasing class inequality, antagonistic political attitudes, inadequate healthcare for the mentally ill) that are deeply rooted in reasons we send people to prison. It's just so much easier to throw them in a box than it is to address the real problems at their core. Law, it seems, has grown into this trolling monster that exists only to perpetuate itself while falsely purporting to serve the public.
Re:Prison is being misused (Score:4, Interesting)
Sadly, The People respond positively when it is announced that "criminals" have been imprisoned for their "crimes" almost regardless of why. In general there is a tendency to believe that they wouldn't have locked them up unless they were dangerous. But there are at least two obvious retorts, the first of which is that it is profitable to have a large machine which employs people in the pursuit of locking people up, and the second of which being that people who look for danger find it everywhere, and it's easy to get carried away even (or perhaps especially) when acting with the best of intentions.