Comment by belorn
7 years ago
I don't live in the US so maybe this is cultural, but do you really want the legal outcome of crime to be based on local policy and norms? When I hear about sexual assault give jail time in one town and only a slap on the wrist on an other then that sound like injustice. I have always believed that a sign of a healthy legal system in any nation is when common laws are being enforced equally regardless of local provincial customs, norms or policy. If we apply this to internal process of a company it looks odd that one company should have completely different outcome to an other when an employee commits a crime.
And we don't need to use the police. We could invent a new group called peace keepers with different training, but the key point is that crime is defined in a democratic process that is uniformed applied to every citizen and thus the outcome of crime should be equally uniformed.
Private guards has a very clear line between the domain of the police and what they can do, just like the clear line between the military and the police. Private guards do not investigate crime, do not handle evidence, and is not considered part of the legal system. Similarly it seems natural to me that cases which society defines as crime should not be handled internally by any company. Having overlaps where private guards and the military stepping in as police sounds as a terrible outcome and a sign that something is broken in the legal system. Better to then discuss what is broken and fix it so we can return to equal outcomes for all citizens.
> I don't live in the US so maybe this is cultural, but do you really want the legal outcome of crime to be based on local policy and norms?
This isn't about legal outcomes or crimes.
This is about crime. Threating someone with violence is a offense that society in a democratic process has define as illegal with an legal outcome. Sexual assault is a offense that society in a democratic process has define as illegal with an legal outcome.
There is a very clear line between crime and non-crime.
I'll apologize for my confusion. I was working from the context of u/jlb's comment [0]. and from the context of the posted article, in which none of the Google execs have been accused of a clear-cut crime. But the comment from u/shados that started this thread, and to which you are referring to, was talking about "downright criminal acts" [1].
So when we're talking about a "downright criminal act" -- violent assault, robbery, rape, threats to safety, fraud, etc. -- yes, the police should be brought in, for their powers of investigation and arrest, among other things. But then we're basically arguing a tautology -- "Should the police, whose job is to deal with criminal acts, be called in when a criminal act has occurred?"
What I read in u/shados's question, and subsequent comments, was: if an accusation isn't good enough for police standards, why should a company/HR use it as the basis of firing someone? So my line of argument is mostly irrelevant if you believe that companies have the right to fire people for non-criminal accusations. But I guess the bigger discussion is about the line between what constitutes a criminal act, vs. a civil dispute.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18353824
1 reply →