Friend on Twitter is contemplating the idea of setting criminal punishment severity based on how likely you are to be a repeat offender

[paradox@raru.re]

Friend on Twitter is contemplating the idea of setting criminal punishment severity based on how likely you are to be a repeat offender.
Light punishment for crimes committed under extreme duress, harsh ones when the criminal would otherwise have no problem doing it again.

Yeah I'm sure this alone would be problematic, but it's an interesting idea.

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@Paradox crimes committed under duress or necessity (and more in general “mitigating circumstances”) will already levy a reduced sentence/punishment. Ditto for first-time offense. And recidivism is already punished more harshly. So what exactly is your friend on Twitter talking about, given that they apparently don't know what they're talking about?

[paradox@raru.re]

@oblomov
Well I guess it's more like the logical extreme of that, because harsh crimes still have minimum sentences.

Like imagine accidentally committing fraud. You're tricked into trying to cash a check for thousands. Do you want months in jail for that?

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@Paradox the question you should be asking is: if you can prove you were tricked into etc, what will your sentence be now?
(Depends on the judicial system, but for example fraud will generally require intent, and if you can prove you were tricked, then there was no intent from you and it won't be fraud.)

My point is that before arguing how the system should behave, it would be better to be more informed about (1) how it's already supposed to work and (2) when it doesn't, why?