Boris Becker jailed for two and a half years following bankruptcy scam

fez said:
They should get a massive fine, have to pay the full amount of tax back and do a huge amount of community service and perhaps be put on a curfew. Hes not dangerous and all that putting him in prison does it cost the tax payer huge amounts of money. The rich get away with a huge amount of stuff because the fines are paltry and they can pay them. The rich wouldn't be so quick to do it if they got a massive fine and had to do a thousand hours of community service. Thats basically 20 hours a week for a year.



Taking away someones liberties and freedoms can be done without prison. Prison generally isn't a great deterrent. Most people are far more motivated if they lose things like money, freedom and time.
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It’s not purely about being dangerous, prison is more than locking up violent conduct crimes. My point and which you fail you address is that if picking up trash is the worst you can throw at them. Everyone and I mean EVERYONE will start hiding their assets and not pay any tax. Time behind bars serves as a strong deterrent to those trying the same. If you think that’s too harsh, then you will think twice before doing it. The fact that you think it’s too harsh, means it’s having an effect.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
It’s not purely about being dangerous, prison is more than locking up violent conduct crimes. My point and which you fail you address is that if picking up trash is the worst you can throw at them. Everyone and I mean EVERYONE will start hiding their assets and not pay any tax. Time behind bars serves as a strong deterrent to those trying the same. If you think that’s too harsh, then you will think twice before doing it. The fact that you think it’s too harsh, means it’s having an effect.
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I know you weren't replying to me, but its along the same point I was making.

I think making someones life an inconvenience for crimes like this will have the desired effect. I think different people have different tolerance levels.

I don't know the full range of options available for courts these days to hand out, but if I was the judge I'd have him doing X amount of community work per week for his full sentence duration. He'd have a probation officer to make sure he's doing it, a book to sign etc. I'd put a tag on him and put him in curfew between the hours of 8pm to 6am every day. There could also be financial restrictions on what he can do with any money he gets, including being forced to pay a % of money back.

For someone with an ego like Boris it means he won't be able to go out to any parties in the evening. He'll be constantly reminded to do his community work, and have to regularly report to probation.
 
something daft already!! said:
Someone changed the thread title. sad face.
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A number of posts have also gone missing as well for no apparent reason, have to assume that's a bug with the new forum though because moderators always left a message when deleting posts.

jordan47354 said:
Severity of the crime matters as well as the nature of the crime. £2.5m is a lot of money to steal.
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Precisely.

Honestly @arknor complaining that someone didn't get the same sentence for a non violent drug offence as a multi million pound fraud.
 
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I disagree, and so does our judicial system. He had plenty of warnings and in fact, in a case like this, he would have to plan it, it’s not something like killing someone which in some cases, happened in a moment of madness or recklessness.

He knew what he was doing, he wanted to do it, he planned and then did it. He showed no remorse, he still think what he did was right. The sentencing would also take that into account.

And he got punished for it. If all he got was something community service? He would have laughed all the way to the bank and he would do it again and again.

Had he own up and paid it back when it was first caught and showed remorse, I have no doubt he wouldn’t be in the position he is in now.

The sentencing in part reflects on his lack of respect to the court and law. He essentially spat at our judicial system. If all he got was picking up rubbish a few times a week and stop him going to parties then we might as well tell people that crimes does pay and disrespecting the court has no punishment.
 
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Surveyor said:
Not always.
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Even if they didn't leave a specific message though the forum would always say "deleted... no reason specified", which was great because threads got confusing otherwise with people mixing up who was responding to what when a post was deleted, and if your post was removed you knew you had broken the rules or that you were being told not to continue posting said content.
 
I can see that there are several posts that have been removed. They have a variety of reasons but i can see that they’re mainly “off topic”.

Are you saying you can’t see these deleted messages? You should be able to see these.
 
Energize said:
Even if they didn't leave a specific message though the forum would always say "deleted... no reason specified", which was great because threads got confusing otherwise with people mixing up who was responding to what when a post was deleted, and if your post was removed you knew you had broken the rules or that you were being told not to continue posting said content.
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Not that either. I reported a post quite recently (but before the update) which was deleted without a trace. If anything was said to the poster I couldn't say.
 
Surveyor said:
Not that either. I reported a post quite recently (but before the update) which was deleted without a trace. If anything was said to the poster I couldn't say.
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Can you confirm if you can see these deleted messages above?

 
Raymond Lin said:
It’s not purely about being dangerous, prison is more than locking up violent conduct crimes. My point and which you fail you address is that if picking up trash is the worst you can throw at them. Everyone and I mean EVERYONE will start hiding their assets and not pay any tax. Time behind bars serves as a strong deterrent to those trying the same. If you think that’s too harsh, then you will think twice before doing it. The fact that you think it’s too harsh, means it’s having an effect.
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So you think that everyone will start hiding assets if they lose them and have a massive fine to pay and have to do a life altering amount of community service... I don't agree.

If Boris Becker loses everything and still has a few million left to find over the rest of his life and has to spend half his time for the next year doing community service then I think that might just be quite a serious deterrent.

If prison was such an effective one then there wouldn't be huge amounts of evidence that just locking people up isn't effective.
 
fez said:
So you think that everyone will start hiding assets if they lose them and have a massive fine to pay and have to do a life altering amount of community service... I don't agree.

If Boris Becker loses everything and still has a few million left to find over the rest of his life and has to spend half his time for the next year doing community service then I think that might just be quite a serious deterrent.

If prison was such an effective one then there wouldn't be huge amounts of evidence that just locking people up isn't effective.
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If you think prison isn’t effect as a deterrent then I’m not sure how a little ankle bracelet would do much good.
 
Raymond Lin said:
If you think prison isn’t effect as a deterrent then I’m not sure how a little ankle bracelet would do much good.
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Statistics disagree with you but you're entitled to your views and I don't think either of us is going to change them so...
 
jordan47354 said:
What statistics?
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www.theguardian.com

We know that prison doesn’t work. So what are the alternatives? | Jarryd Bartle

We would have funds for better preventive measures if we stopped seeing imprisonment as a default solution
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

If I can be bothered to find hard statistics for you I will. If you look at all the countries with the best outcomes from prison and punishment, they usually prioritise rehabilitation, alternative punishments and fixing the core issue rather than simply prison as a form of punishment.
 
fez said:
www.theguardian.com

We know that prison doesn’t work. So what are the alternatives? | Jarryd Bartle

We would have funds for better preventive measures if we stopped seeing imprisonment as a default solution
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

If I can be bothered to find hard statistics for you I will. If you look at all the countries with the best outcomes from prison and punishment, they usually prioritise rehabilitation, alternative punishments and fixing the core issue rather than simply prison as a form of punishment.
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The problem here is Becker doesn’t think he has done anything wrong, showed no remorse, rehab? rehab for what? Rehab for something he doesn’t believe he has done anything in the first place. See where I am going? He probably won’t go to the rehab, what’s your punishment then? Rehab for not going to rehab? For rehabilitation to be effective you need to be remorseful and take the step to admit it. It’s like admitting to be an alcoholic before you can be treated.

I also said that had he admit it, pay up in the first instance, not keep digging his own grave and show the court a bit of respect and remorse he would no doubt got away with no time behind bars, just as you wanted. Lots of rich people dodge tax then get caught and do no time, but they don’t keep on digging after they’ve been caught. They usually just pay up and move on.

Not Becker.

See the difference?
 
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I’m really not a ‘lock them up person’ but I really don’t get the he didn’t deserve prison arguments.

He was an incredibly privileged person with a huge public profile and used it to earn a lot of money, even after he retired from the professional game. He used is profile and wealth to commit a multi million £ fraud for his own personal gain. He showed no remorse and knew exactly what he was doing. The book quite rightly should have been thrown at him as it should anyone else in the same position.

I don’t know who we owed money to but some of it was probably tax which is literally your money he stole. There were probably other creditors in the queue as well who he stole from.

You’d get a criminal record and potential a prison sentence (probably suspended) for stealing £5k of DWP benefits, this was literally millions.
 
fez said:
Statistics disagree with you but you're entitled to your views and I don't think either of us is going to change them so...
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Prison is not an effective deterrent for vioéent crime, murder, drug abuse, theft

It is a moderately better deterrent for white collar crime like tax fraud
 
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