Sign for her time

Gas Theif Sentenced to Wear Sign as Punishment.

A just punishment? Too harsh? Too little?

As gas theft cost gas stations $112 million last year, and that number is sure to climb in '04, something needs to be done at some point. Are gas prices high? Hell yes they are. Is it the local gas station's fault. Hell no. The station itself does not really make a huge profit on gas, about 5-8 cents on the gallon. Taxes, shipping, refining, ect ect eat up the rest of it. Your average neighborhood Gas Station would need almost a whole day to make up for one $30 gas theft. At the high end there, 8 cents, that is 375 gallons to make up for the $30, just to break even. That is $693.85 of total gas cost at a lower $1.85 per gallon.

(the figures I am using, ie 5-8 cents, comes from asking gas station owners point blank. ask a few in your area, I am pretty sure those figures are pretty close wherever you are at too)

--link should be fixed now--

[Edited on Jul 31, 2004 by starkmadd]

I do not think its too harsh at all. Here in Florida you can have your license suspended now for steeling gas.
I used to work at a gas stations years ago and sometimes that profit number you used could go even lower. I remember times when we were only making one penny per gallon.

Your average neighborhood gas station uses a a necessary utility as an attractor to sell other items. They're not hurting.

People shouldn't steal gas. People should neither be degraded and humiliated for stealing less than three dollars worth of what is, fundamentally, a vital resource. Les Misrables is a cautionary tale, not a judicial model.

yeah, cause gas prices are gonna keep climbing.,,,

I hate driving nowadays...

To paraphrase Heinlen from Starship Troopers, punishment is supposed to be both cruel and unusual. When a puppy pisses on your carpet, first you rub his nose in it to make sure he knows exactly what he did wrong, then you smack him with a newspaper to make sure he doesn't do it again.

And you wind up with a dog who's an asshole. Heinlein is a fascist, which he can get away with because he's a pop culture author who doesn't need to deal with the repercussions of putting his vituperative fantasies into practice. Here in, well, the real world, we have laws that say that cruel an unusual punishment is an affront to human dignity and degrades us as a people when we practice it. Those laws were written by people with a little more practical cred than some space fantasist.

On of the most effective ways to make sure someone doesn't fuck up the same way twice is to degrade their dignity. That girl was undoubtedly horribly embarrassed by having to stand there on the corner and take responsibility for what she did, but I am willing to bet it's a long, long time before she steps out of line again. What's more, she is not physically injured or incarcerated. The point was made in a few brief hours.
Maybe I am a bit biased because I was exposed to this for years in the army. I saw a kid who forgot his rifle carry around a huge wooden 'simulated' rifle for a week to make sure he never forgot it again. I saw another kid who forgot his ID card have to create a new ID card with black marker on a sheet of poster board and carry it with him everywhere. Yes, it is embarrassing, maybe it is even cruel, but the short term hit to the self-esteem is nothing compared to a real punishment like jail.
Since when do people have a right to dignity, anyways?

The ethics of a closed and voluntary polity are very different from and open and free society. Rules that are instructive in the military are mostly inappropriate in a general population.

Heinlein's job as an author in a new and rapidly expanding genre was to be as experamental as possible. The particular case of Starship Troopers had to do primarily with enfranchisement and an active citizenry. He made some extreme and easy examples up to show negative cases. These should not be confused with 2nd Treatise on Government, On Liberty, Das Kapital, or anything else of that sort.

I don't know as people have the right, per se, to dignity but I am sure that the Constitution / Bill of Rights has a lot to say about not taking it away from people arbitrarily.

For $4.52 worth?

In California we call that 'topping off'.

Well given the choice between jail, probabion, or a big fine, and a single day of humiliation I would choose the humiliation. The jail and probation carry a record of offense the day at the gas station is over after that day. Definately the humiliation.

Because you know, people who have to steal $2.73 worth of gas have plenty of dignity to spare.

Sorry, but what works in a closed, totally autocratic system like the army has painfully little relevance to the real world. Even if by some phenomenal stretch of the imagination the Army's cure for carelessness could be extended to our penal system effectively, you still have that pesky eighth amendment problem: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Efficiency, which a funny way to describe a prosecution that cost the state thousands of dollars over an offense that cost pennies, is simply not the be all and end all of any civilized society. The most effective way to reduce repeat offense is to simply execute the offender. 100% effective. We don't do that either

the story doesn't mention any other punishment, so if carrying a sign was the only punishment, she got off pretty damn easy.

nobody swallows the cost of theft except us, the consumer, especially $112 million a year. Just like department stores pass on the cost to consumers, I'l sure the gas stations do to.

and I would check those figures.... let's say a gas station get an average of 20 customers per hour, more during the day, less during the night. Let's say each customer buys an average of 8 gallons. making only $.05 per gallon:
20 cph x 24 hours + 480 cars
480 cars x 8 gallons = 3840 gallons a day
$,05 profit a gallon x 3840 gallons = $192 profit a day
I think these numbers are low, with these numbers of cars per hour, gallons per car that makes only $5760 profit a month ($69,120.00 a year) on gas (not including the high price items in the store) and I doubt a gas station could stay in business on only $70,000 a year.

Or another way of estimating

$30 dollars theft of gas a day / $.05 lost profit per gallon = 600 gallons needed to be sold to make up the $30
600 gallons / average of 8 gallons sold per car = 75 cars
75 cars / 24 hours in a day = 3.125 cars an hour

again I think the number of cars and gallons sold are low. Gas theft is not a victimless crime, but the gas station isn't the victim, we are

but I'm tired so I could be full of shit
~r

Uh, no. Not in America they're not. Try paying UK prices for gas, then you'll see what expensive gas is.

In the UK petrol is about 80pence per litre. That's about $1.46 per litre. That's $5.52 per US gallon.

Now you know why we laugh at SUVs doing 15 mpg.


NOTES:
£0.80 = $1.46
1 US gallon = 3.7854 litres.
1.46 * 3.7854 = 5.52

Starship Troopers...wasn't that the corny movie with the giant bugs? Who the fuck is using that as a model for society?

It was based on a book that was much better.

Also, doesn't this remind anyone else of the Scarlet Letter a little tiny bit?

Don't judge a book by it's movie.

Were there no giant bugs in the book?

No, plenty of big fucking demon hell bent for leather bugs who were being used to do a thinly veiled hatchet job on communism.

The book, like the movie, also has no shortage of platitudes about why neo-facism is cool.

The book is so fucked in the head on that topic that the movie is basically a parody about how BAD an idea neo-facism is.

Watch the movie with the director commentary on some time. It is hilarious.

As to the people who are going to tell me I am not getting the book. believe me. I've read it like 20 times. The book is politically fucked. Just keep in mind that the man also wrote about:
Workable Anarchism in the Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Workable Polyamory in Stranger in a Strange Land
Demon Negros Ruling the Eath after the Apocalypse in Farnham's Freehold

The guy was experimenting with science fiction, not writing postion papers for the RAND corp.

Would you like to know more?

Anyone caught stealing should suffer the same consequences. Maybe if we actually punished people for petty theft like stealing $4 in gas, they would think twice about greaking into your house or hi-jacking your car, then again, some people are just fucked up in the head and will do these things anyway..

I'd give them the "Gas Face."