
Fugitive on run for seventeen years found living in cave by a drone - cinbun8
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49874969
======
breitling
There was a similar case in the US. In the 70's, there was a crooked cop who
was convicted (for some lewd acts) and had to surrender himself to prison. He
chose to run instead and spent 22 years in the forest.

Eventually he couldn't take it anymore and surrendered himself. He was then
given a suspended sentence citing that he already has been through enough.

Here's a podcast episode on that: [https://snapjudgment.org/cop-
out](https://snapjudgment.org/cop-out)

~~~
ssully
It sounds like he used the power of his job to rape several women. Now that he
is free, it says he is helping fight police corruption and donates to
organizations that help victims of sexual assault, but if I was one of his
victims, I don't think I would feel justice is served just because he hid in
the woods for 22 years. This is a pretty tricky scenario imo.

~~~
dunstad
There are a lot of people who feel like the primary goal of what we call the
criminal justice system is making the victims feel like criminals are treated
poorly enough. While perhaps satisfying to some individuals, it results in
high rates of recidivism, which makes society less safe for everyone.

A criminal justice system centered around reform results in a safer and more
humane society for everyone.

------
foxhop
Wait he sufficiently exiled himself and rejoined nature, survived (likely
alone) for 17 years, and they take him back to prison?

~~~
really3452
Right or wrong, a large function of the prison system is to ruin someone's
life in a sufficiently public way for performing actions outside of the given
society's norms and values to serve as a deterrent to those who would follow
in their footsteps.

~~~
magashna
Except that has never proven to reduce recidivism, and in the US seems to
increase it. The Swedes seem to have much better luck with education,
training, and rehabilitative options.

~~~
RealityVoid
Op mentioned nothing about recidivism or it's usefulness to the prisoner.
That's just about irrelevant if the intended desired effect is deterrence.

~~~
magashna
Apologies. Punishment is not a deterrent.

~~~
rbut
And you are wiser than anyone in authority that has walked before you? (eg.
parents, law makers, authorities, teachers, etc).

Punishment is a deterrent and has been proven so for millennia.

~~~
maxheadroom
> _Punishment is a deterrent and has been proven so for millennia._

A proven deterrent? Do you have any facts to back-up your posit? The crime and
recidivism rates would seem to indicate the contrary; especially, in the
states.

Essentially, we should - in theory - have no crime by now (given it's been
over a millennium) as all rates should've diminished to zero, yeah?

At best, punishment as a deterrent is keeping the for-profit prison-industrial
complex in business and that's about the extent of any benefit[s] (if it can
even be called that) it might be providing to society.

~~~
really3452
"Deterrence in relation to criminal offending is the idea or theory that the
threat of punishment will deter people from committing crime and reduce the
probability and/or level of offending in society." \-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_(penology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_\(penology\))

So, punishment as a deterrent is currently a theory.

~~~
Cpoll
> Theory

I want to reply to wickedsickeune below, "Gravity is also a theory," but I
think the thread's hit max-depth.

The word "theory" in the context of Deterrence_(penology) is not the same as
the word "theory" in "theory of Gravity." The _Theory_ of Gravity refers to a
model or explanation that follows from observed facts.

Deterrence, according to the Wikipedia page, doesn't fit that definition of
the word.

> Despite numerous studies using a variety of data sources, sanctions, crime
> types, statistical methods and theoretical approaches, there remains little
> agreement in the scientific literature about whether, how, under what
> circumstances, to what extent, for which crimes, at what cost, for which
> individuals and, perhaps most importantly, in which direction do various
> aspects of contemporary criminal sanctions affect subsequent criminal
> behavior.

~~~
antsar
(Off-topic) It's sometimes (always?) possible to reply despite the missing
"reply" button. Click the timestamp of the post to see it on its own page.
That page seems to have a reply button even when the thread does not.

~~~
Cpoll
Thanks for this comment! I realized I was missing something when I got a reply
(with my post being at the same depth as the one I couldn't reply to).

------
narag
They guy had managed to inflict himself punishment at no cost to taxpayers. At
least victims will have some relief, otherwise it's a waste of time.

~~~
sverige
It's unclear from the article what his crime was, only that he escaped from a
prison camp. It could be that his only crime was being Tibetan or Uighur or a
member of Falun Gong or that he said something against the government. It's
China, so the only 'victims' might be the prison guards on whose watch he
escaped.

~~~
azinman2
It says so literally in the first paragraph:

“The 63-year old, named Song Jiang by the police, had been jailed for
trafficking women and children but escaped from a prison camp in 2002.“

~~~
sverige
Don't know how I missed that. Sorry everyone.

------
interestica
He had a source of water and fuel. But what did he eat? The "household
rubbish" suggests he had some sort of supply line?

------
MisterTea
> Yongshan police received clues about Song's whereabouts in early September,
> they said on their WeChat account.

So there is no tech or surveillance story here. Only the use of a relatively
common high tech gadget aiding good old fashioned police work.

------
maerF0x0
His crime is sufficiently distateful that I dont want to defend him
specifically. But the overall subject raises interesting questions about
enforcement of laws and their applicability as enforcement approaches perfect.
(ie 100%)

For example consider speeding laws we can actually approach perfect
enforcement using GPS data and engine management. But then the question
becomes how does the archaic law morph when perfectly applied? Should _every_
driver who _ever_ speeds be charged the fine? That is roughly every driver
every time they drive whom uses the highways near me. And how often should
they be charged? Each time they exceed the speed limit (for example if
speedlimit is 65 and I brake to 64, then speed to 66 several times, is that
several tickets?) ...

I suspect that most of our laws have been written without grace/forgiveness
knowing that we used to only catch a small percentage of perpetrators, and
likely the most egregious of them (assuming frequency & magnitude would
increase probability of being caught). What ought do if that percent sky
rockets, but the laws were designed for the former value?

~~~
naasking
> I suspect that most of our laws have been written without grace/forgiveness
> knowing that we used to only catch a small percentage of perpetrators

Or that we can choose not to prosecute in order to use their testimony against
a bigger fish. It's called prosecutorial discretion, and it seems reasonable
at first, but it's responsible for the slow encroachment of government in all
aspects of private life. After all, why change or protest a law you break
every day if it will never be used against you?

Everyone probably breaks multiple laws a day without realising it.

If everyone that broke any law had to be charged and prosecuted, we would have
a much more politically engaged populace, a much more efficient process to
appeal judgements and repeal unjust laws.

~~~
maerF0x0
I would also argue that having to mount a defense against an accusation is
sufficiently punitive (can easily bankrupt) almost any individual in today's
society (at least in north America).

Maybe it's easier to just pay the speeding ticket because to fight it would
cost 10x in lawyers fees. That's not justice, it's just economic extortion.

------
chiefalchemist
I've watched "Alone" on the History Channel from time to time. One of the
things that surprised me was how the contestants were affected mentally. Often
enough they tap out not from lack of food, but from lack of human contact.

It's amazing this guy survived. It's close to a miracle he did it alone.

------
tyingq
Establishing a new identity wasn't a huge task when we were paper based. A
pretty common approach was finding someone that died young, roughly your age,
in a rural or religious community that probably didn't file the right papers
to document the death. Or somewhere small enough that destroying the single
paper in a file accomplished the same.

Then bootstrap that up from a birth certificate to a social security card and
so on.

I imagine it's not that simple anymore.

------
cameronbrown
It's strange to imagine how much the world has changed in 17 years, from this
guy's perspective.

~~~
thinkingemote
I beg to differ. For example Enemy of the State which dealt with aerial
surveillance was released 21 years ago.

Predator drones were deployed in the middle east in 2000 but were in use from
1995 in the Balkans. Quadcopters are new though.

17 years and people were living online lives. With Web 2.0 which began a
couple of years later around 15 years ago. There's not much that has changed
fundamentally which could cause a psychological shock.

Now, if he was on the fun since 1980 maybe ... but 2002 was just around the
corner (at least for the type of people who read HN).

~~~
cameronbrown
> Predator drones were deployed in the middle east in 2000 but were in use
> from 1995 in the Balkans. Quadcopters are new though.

Quadcopters wouldn't have even been possible without serious advances in
battery technology and radio infrastructure.

There was no reason for him to expect the police would've had access to these
kind of resources.

> 17 years and people were living online lives. With Web 2.0 which began a
> couple of years later around 15 years ago. There's not much that has changed
> fundamentally which could cause a psychological shock.

Even just the invention of the smartphone would be alien to him. I think you
may have lost perspective on how different it is. People did not expect to be
connected like we are today. It's obvious in hindsight but nobody could have
predicted it.

------
efa
Living in a cave not able to leave maybe _slightly_ better than a jail cell?
Of course I'm not sure what other horrors he faced in a Chinese prison.

~~~
SamuelAdams
Personally I would rather live in a cave. When you're in a jail cell, you
might end up on an operating table because some wealthy someone needs a new
liver, and yours was a match. This person did live in exile, but he lived
nonetheless. To some life itself is more important.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China)

~~~
reaperducer
There are hundreds of thousands of people who live in caves. China and Turkey
leap to mind.

The article I read about it in Turkey showed it as a kind of cultural heritage
thing, not a poverty thing.

The article I read about it in China was about the Chinese government forcing
people who live in caves to move to cities, where they have no social nets or
coping skills. Apparently there is some huge number (hundreds of thousands?
millions? I forget) of people in China who live in caves in the western part
of the country, and Beijing considers their lifestyle an embarrassment.

------
gxs
I wonder if he'd had means, not a lot just a few thousand dollars, he would
have been able to remain free.

Maybe moving completely out of the area, buying a used car cash and driving to
another state entirely?

Somehow getting himself into Mexico and boarding a ship somewhere in south
america or asia?

I wonder if these days with all the surveillance it really takes living in a
cave to get away from law enforcement.

------
TheBeardKing
And how much longer before they use facial recognition to identify the
fugitive then execute the arrest?

~~~
wil421
Execute made me think of Judge Dredd. What the movies gets wron is it won’t be
a person who is the Judge it will be an AI. Fugitive match found, sending
drones to confirm, deploying Cop AI, running Judge routine, sentenced to
death. I am the law.

~~~
foxhop
We call it, law-and-justice-as-a-service

~~~
SiempreViernes
_Justify_ (tm)

Sadly, both justify.com and justify.it are squatted it appears.

~~~
milankragujevic
justify.ai too.

~~~
reportgunner
justif.ai

------
Someone
Reminds me of the famous examples of Japanese soldiers fighting on after 1945,
two of them
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda),
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruo_Nakamura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruo_Nakamura),
on separate islands) until 1974.

([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout)
even mentions “Shigeyuki Hashimoto and Kiyoaki Tanaka joined the Malayan
Communist Party's guerrilla forces to continue fighting, returning to Japan in
January 1990”)

------
leon1717
Might be a good twist: it's a state sponsored DJI ads, PRC gently saves the
drone industry.

------
NTDF9
What an amazing script for a movie

------
billpg
Julian Assange?

