
In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time  - muratmutlu
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2012/08/china_s_wealthy_and_influential_sometimes_hire_body_doubles_to_serve_their_prison_sentences.html
======
kaptain
A typical response I see on HN (and on other forums) in response to failings
in other countries (e.g. acts of terrorism, corruption, failure of government
support, etc) is to find some sarcastic analogy to compare it to in the US.
The Chinese government has gotten on the bandwagon with its own publication of
the US's human rights violations
([http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-05/25/c_1316113...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-05/25/c_131611391.htm)).
I found this humorous.

It would be naïve to think that the USA (I'm picking on the USA because I am
an American citizen) is the perfect country. I haven't lived in other
countries long enough to be able to compare, but I /can/ compare the
experience between China and the US and it makes me grateful to be a US
citizen.

The truth is, there is no real comparison between China and the US: I get
questions about corruption in the US all the time and I always answer that
there /is/ corruption in the US but not in the endemic/pervasive way that we
see it in China. The media is more open than in China, the government process
is more transparent.

My business partner and I are in the middle of doing a training/internship
(simple LAMP application development) for students at a local university. This
isn't a top tier university: it's a third-tier university in the capital of
one of the poorest regions in the country. There's a lot of potential here but
when we asked people if they had any aspirations to entrepreneurship, we
mostly get a 'no'. The lack of mobility for the common person is evident here.

No matter what the US's failures are what it has that the Chinese system (note
that I didn't say government, because some of the issues here are cultural)
doesn't have is "opportunity". There's a lot of unrealistic optimism here
amongst college-age students (i.e. "I can do it if I try.") but there is a
dark understanding that this is severely limited by what is available to them
after they graduate. It's actually really sad: people here are in love with
pieces of paper that 'qualify' you for a job. But with an overabundance of
college graduates (in a system where cheating is normal), the value of a
college degree is lessened. So you have a huge population of mid-20's that
paid large sums of money for degrees that are largely worthless (i.e. the
degrees didn't fulfill the better life that they promised).

China has aspirations to be the world's best, but it won't be until it can
find a way to empower its own people.

~~~
kwanbis
Kinda off topic, but if you are from USA, you are a United States citizen,
american is anybody who is born on the continental america (north, central and
south).

~~~
LargeWu
I have never heard anybody, anywhere, ever, refer to somebody from the North
or South American continents, who is not a US citizen as an "American". "The
Americas" commonly refers to both continents, but I've never heard anybody
call a non US-citizen "American". Where is this a common usage?

~~~
mitchty
From what I've found its really only from predominantly Spanish speaking
university students in South America.

It also ignores most colloquial usage of the terms America and American in
English. While technically correct, it is unlikely to occur. Americans are
citizens of the United States of America. Just as Mexicans are citizens of
Estados Unidos Mexicanos. But we shorten them to Mexicans as well.

Its more useful in either case to just list your nationality in either case.
Unless people seem to want to identify with an Italian name for both
continents I don't see where getting all up in arms over Americans referring
to a citizen of the US. USian is an alternative, but lets be honest, it rolls
off the tongue horridly and is unlikely to catch on.

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ck2
In the USA they just buy the way out of the system - I mean look at all the
people in prison for the default swaps and banking scandals. Oh wait, there
aren't any.

~~~
rprasad
That is because prison _is not the punishment_ for most of those offenses.
Before you say shit about the U.S. judicial system, you should learn something
about it.

SEC and FTC violations are _civil offenses_. The punishment for civil offenses
are _fines_. Plenty of firms and higher-ups have paid fines.

Jail time only applies in cases where _deliberate fraud_ is proven to have
occurred. We all know that the finance guys were too reckless in their pursuit
of profits. But recklessness is not a crime (and indeed, the only crime in the
U.S. system for which "recklessness" is relevant is manslaughter/murder).

~~~
sehugg
Here's a low-level Countrywide loan officer that got 15 years in prison:
[http://www.fbi.gov/phoenix/press-releases/2012/former-
countr...](http://www.fbi.gov/phoenix/press-releases/2012/former-countrywide-
loan-officer-sentenced-to-15-years-in-prison-and-ordered-to-pay-22-million-in-
restitution/)

Here's the ex-CEO of Countrywide getting his criminal investigation dropped
after settling with the SEC for $67.5 million:
[http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/criminal-
investigatio...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/criminal-
investigation-of-countrywide-chief-ends/)

I'm seeing a pattern here.

~~~
tome
You're seeing a pattern in two datapoints?

~~~
AJ007
I see a pattern of off topic stories being posted to HN

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kooshball
I wonder how that business would work.

Do you have a list of "candidates" that are willing to go to jail for a
certain price? Or would you get a client first, then try to find someone who
looks like them, and then offer the person some amount of money to go to jail?

Both seems tricky, the 2nd one if the body double is not reliable they can go
to the cops and everything falls apart.

~~~
tsotha
The thing is, in China being rich and powerful usually means being connected
to the upper echelons of the government and military. It's not as risky if you
can tell the second guy "...either way, keep your mouth shut or all your
organs will be in different people by the end of the week."

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BHSPitMonkey
Sounds like a great opportunity for a startup!

------
alan_cx
So, where is this special country where the rich do no use their wealth to
manipulate justice, what ever justice actually is? The rich always have done,
do so now, and always will. China is nothing special.

------
edwinyzh
I'm a Chinese and I'm sure that such things are very much possible in China.
It's even worst in smaller cities since the media there is even more
"unopened". Thanks to the fast growing of Internet usage in China(the only
trustworthy media in China), things are getting a little better in the past
ten years or so.

------
toddh
Recall that wealthy conscripts could buy their way out of serving in the
Revolutionary War and the Civil War.

~~~
gwern
Yeah, but there it was justified as a way to raise funds for ruinously
expensive wars at a time where most alternative methods of fundraising like
issuing debt or debasing currency (Continentals, greenbacks) had already been
tapped to the hilt. And buying your way out was expensive - IIRC, the Civil
War fee was like $300, and I don't even know what that'd be equivalent to
today ($30,000?).

These body doubles have no such justifications.

------
ramblerman
Growing up in Dubai I witnessed a similar practice called 'blood money'.

Simply put, In the case of a car accident, The family of the victim can demand
a fee, which would void any prosecution against the perp.

It's not ideal, but seems better than the chinese system. At least the
victim's family gets something out of it.

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mulation
If all the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time,
why would they lose their lawsuit?

~~~
edwinnathaniel
Because the people demand a win in the court against the rich and powerful.

Once the verdict is out, the people are happy.

Give a few months to a year give or take, the people will forget what happen
(temper goes down), the rich is out but not necessary in plain sight everyday
(semi-hiding), and the body double is in the prison.

~~~
mulation
As a Chinese whom know a lot of real dark side of this country, I must say
this report is just a joke. There may be 10 or 20 cases in the whole China for
a decade, but exaggerating to that level is just a joke. Maybe people want to
see this kind of story.

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epynonymous
sad. i have a theory that this happens for entrance examinations and things
like SATs. i sometimes see these morons getting into good schools like harvard
from china. take for instance bo xi lai's son.

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m0skit0
Title looks wrong for me. The right title should be "In China too, ..."

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swah
There is something similar in Breaking Bad.

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crafter
A good story for Marginal Revolution's "Markets in Everything"... which
reminds me I should give it a visit.

~~~
spindritf
The story was linked on Marginal Revolution
[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/08/ass...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/08/assorted-
links-527.html)

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sodelate
WTF

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thdn
I've couldn't stop laughing when I've saw the headline ROLF

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known
It's common in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_world>

~~~
dhbanes
According to the linked article, China is not part of the third world.

