Metaphorical Pirates
Noting the relative insouciance of the operators of the Swedish file-sharing service The Pirate Bay upon conviction, Tom Lee remarks “The gravity of the situation seems to have not yet struck the people involved — either that or Swedish prisons are awfully cushy.”
I think the issue is that Swedish prisons actually are pretty cushy. You can read a funny account here or a more serious explanation from Sweden’s Kriminalvarden agency. But the long and short of it is that, as I understand it, the Swedish system basically understands criminal activity as overwhelmingly stemming from substance abuse problems, mental illness, and lack of labor market problems. Consequently, though the prisoners are certainly closely supervised, the conditions in prison are extremely humane and not especially “punitive.” The emphasis is on trying to help people with their problems and trying to ensure that dangerous people aren’t out and about on the streets.
To the best of my knowledge, the system works pretty well. But what it won’t do is provide a ton of deterrence against criminals who are to a large extent motivated by a conviction that they’re actually doing the right thing. One would rather avoid Swedish prison, but it’s not a terrifying situation and a prisoner of conscience could comport himself relatively comfortably.
24 Responses to “Metaphorical Pirates”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
April 17th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
But what it won’t do is provide a ton of deterrence against criminals who are to a large extent motivated by a conviction that they’re actually doing the right thing.
Yes, and if any upper management of AIG ends up serving time in jail (and if it happens, it will be in a minimum-security “Club Fed”) for fraud, no doubt they will also consider themselves “prisoners of conscience” who never betrayed their Randian ideals.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Well, they ARE doing the right thing.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
That’s a bummer.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Criminal activity stems from lack of labor market problems??
Finally, an explanation for why crime hasn’t been going up since the recession started!
April 17th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Its time we got realistic and called file-sharing pirates what they really are: intellectual property terrorists.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I’m all for more humane treatment of prisoners. In fact, I’m strongly in favor of more humane treatment. But this is ridiculous.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
This must be why crime is so rampant in Sweden.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Also, I’m quite sure there is an IKEA joke in here somewhere. “I don’t understand the instructions on my Omloo shiv” or somesuch. Help me out here people.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Just be grateful the Swedes didn’t put you in typo prison, Matt.
You would be serving like nine thousand consecutive life sentences.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
In my experience, no matter how comfortable a jail might be, it’s still jail. The removal of your ability to freely travel and associate is still a big deal. Even house arrest sucks, and it’s your own house.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
For the most part, you seem to be pretty well rounded and informed on the stuff you talk about, but there are hundreds if not thousands of torrent websites out there in many other countries with similar thoughts. The pirate bay is the only one that I’ve seen with the balls to spit directly in the face of the entertainment lawyers, but they’re hardly the first to take on the courts and actually try to fight for their site. There was elite torrents in 2005 in the US, oink in the UK whose site admin is still in court over a year and a half after his site was taken down. mininova.org and isohunt.com which are both in court with different groups. The point is that while some of these groups don’t raise their middle finger quite as loud as the pirate bay, they are continually popping up in countries across the globe. If you really want to understand the legal issues or even the social aspect of this horrible thing you call “piracy” check out a lot of the things that Michael Masnick has to say on the Techdirt blog, or google Trent Reznor and read some of the things he has had to say about piracy and the business models he’s put into place not because he enjoys piracy, but because he realizes that it’s inevitable and sees no point in fighting a force that could instead help you.
Anyone interested in this subject would do themselves a lot of good to read this article as well. Music and movies are not dead, the industry is just changing, and cushy prisons have NOTHING to do with it.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
“I don’t understand the instructions on my Omloo shiv” or somesuch.
I hear that sharpened Allen wrenches are the weapon of choice in Swedish prisons.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Criminal activity in Sweden stems partly from “lack of labor market problems.”
I have no idea what this means but I find myself in total agreement!
April 17th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Indeed.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I hear that sharpened Allen wrenches are the weapon of choice in Swedish prisons.
There we go! Since Fight Club references were being thrown around the other day, its no surprise we now see discussion of the IKEA jailing instinct.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I will just never get tired of fighting against people who call file sharing “criminal” or (howling laughter) “terrorism”. Fight fight fight, I will fight all of you silly, prudish motherfuckers til I’m dead. It is SO asinine, ridiculous, and really, its a bunch of textbook ‘transference’. Aging artists and unsuccessful younger artists and cranks who just don’t like music much anyway are pretty much the main people you will find arguing that kids who share files on their computers should be put in jail for doing so, any more than my parents should have been jailed during the 80’s for using their VHS’ to tape shows they liked.
Not to mention, if terrible legal decisions like this become precedent here in the US, they will constitute genuine violations of ‘equal protection’, because there are so many, exponential, different kinds of file sharing, that just picking a particular company and going after them & anyone who used their services, leaves huge swaths of the population carrying on with an illegal activity, but facing no prosecution or consequences, while the people unlucky enough to be associated with whoever is being made the scapegoat are harassed and hyperbolically referred to by some wussy liberal idiots as “terrorists”.
dear lord you uptight, ridiculous people are half of what’s wrong with this planet.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I hear the Swedish prison guards are brutal and prone to midnight strip searchs:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/doggiesrule04/302032926/in/set-72157594308866040/
April 17th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
onceler:
You do get that I was referencing the this, right? Are their people out there seriously calling file sharing terrorism?
April 17th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Implied Otter said:
“This must be why crime is so rampant in Sweden.”
You’re kidding i presume? The crime rate in sweden is ridiculously low compared to the US. Mainly, i’d say, because of low relative inequality and high social mobility.
Yep.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
“The emphasis is on trying to help people with their problems and trying to ensure that dangerous people aren’t out and about on the streets.”
I would appreciate an Yglesian take on the actual merits of the case.
Are they dangerous people? Should their actions be legal?
April 17th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Petey, I believe “dangerous people” was a reference to Swedish prison policy in general, not to the Pirate Bay people. Which is not to say that your question isn’t worth asking — just that the quote doesn’t seem apposite.
April 18th, 2009 at 10:04 am
It’s difficult in general to deter people who think they’re doing the right thing. The more you do the stop them doing what they think is the right thing, the more of a bad guy you seem to be, and so the more motivated they will be to oppose you. Admittedly, if you go to Stalinist extremes, you may eventually terrify people to the point that they stop thinking about right and wrong at all and only think of survival, but short of that, it’s not clear that scaling up the harshness of punishments will ever help much with such people.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:18 am
I’m Swedish and our prisons are indeeed “cushier” than the American prisons.
But “extremely humane” is an intersting choice of words. Did not now that humane-ness was relative.