According to
Internet World Stats, North American Internet users make up less than 3.5% of the total world population. Of that 3.5%, only a fraction use the internet every day. Less still are significantly affected by spam. Less still use the internet for professional purposes, in a capacity that actually helps them make money.
According to the 2003 Human Rights Watch World Report:
About 25 percent of state prisoners and 57 percent of federal inmates were convicted of a drug crime. Of those prisoners, 58 percent have no history of violence or high level of drug dealing activity.
According to a 1999 report, we have over 1.8 million non-violent prisoners in our prison system. More than violent offenders, growing at a faster rate than violent offenders, and one of the highest prison populations in the world.
Prison rape statistics tend to center around 10-20% of prisoners experiencing sexual assault. The assaulters are not apt to make distinctions on whether you are a nonviolent criminal or not.
And yet, talk about a spammer being sentenced to nine years in prison, and you get liberals talking about how the sentence isn't long enough.
And their justification is "lost productivity". Yep, it's not even about public health, much less saving lives. It's about losing a small tiny fraction of the productivity we've gained as a result of the Internet that most of the world hasn't even heard of yet.
And for this, so many of us are willing to raise the pitchforks and send someone to prison for the better part of their life.
It's disgusting. It's a repugnant example of the kind of extremes we can be driven to as a result of our sheltered lives. It's Republican logic and Republican frames, fighting back to make an example of someone when it won't make a damn bit of productive difference.
You want to hurt a spammer? You take away the benefit of spamming, and you take away the ability to spam. There are ways to do this without sending banishing someone to the American prison culture.
Spam is a technological problem. There are technological solutions. There are also human solutions, and all they require is a bit of education and effort. There are scary stats about the future growth of spam, but they all assume a similar email system to what we have today - a stupid assumption given the numerous groups that are working on numerous transparent anti-spam measures to embed in our email systems. A spammer's crime is leeching off of society to benefit from that society. A proportional punishment is to remove their accumulated benefit (money), and their ability to leech off society (probation; keep them from using the internet or making money from it).
Those that are so attached to their email inboxes that they are willing to send a spammer to jail for nine years should take a hard look at where their values lie. Even if it might deter other American spammers, it won't reduce spam. Sentencing the spammer won't increase our productivity. This is simple vigilante, witch-hunting, pitchfork-raising, "tough on crime", chest-thumping bravado that only serves to reinforce the immorality of our prison system and undermine the values we should be fighting for. And it only serves to increase the odds that each of us may someday be used "as an example" to serve someone else's petty agenda, while their supporters cheer.