In this thread Pay the Sniper to Stop, over in Great Debates, the wisdom and morality of making a payment is discussed.
Is anyone aware of an example when a criminal was paid to stop a crime?
Oops - that posted early.
I mean to exclude complicated, political examples: Iran-Contra, etc. Are there historic examples when a city has paid a criminal to stop committing further crimes? In the real world, i.e. not comic books and action movies, has this actually happened?
It happens all the time in kidnapping cases. Here’s a recent example http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,48779,00.html The payment did not result in the release of the hostages.
'I mean to exclude complicated, political examples" Well heck, that rather blows high profile kidnappings out of the running doesn’t it.
I think he’s getting at the “Gotham City Scenario”, in which a SuperCriminal (or Evil Mastermind) holds the city hostage for a sum of money to be named just before Commissioner Gordon fires up the BatSignal and they cut to a commercial.
I can’t think of any real-life scenarios like that, PP. It’s mostly individual kidnappings of executives and journalists and tourists and missionaries, not holding an entire city for ransom.
Unless, of course, you’re talking about the Ancient World.
http://www.bartleby.com/65/ra/ransom.html
http://stabi.hs-bremerhaven.de/whkmla/sat/wb/ant/romerep/romerepwars.html
Danegeld was supposed to get the Danes off your back. According to R.Kipling, it didn’t work.
I suspect it (ransom/payoff) frequently doesn’t work. I can understand the countries that make it illegal to pay ransom (Mexico, Italy I believe).
A fellow I knew who spent time in the joint said that there, kidnapping is regarded as an amateur or flake’s crime.
Danegeld was supposed to get the Danes off your back. According to R.Kipling, it didn’t work.
I suspect it (ransom/payoff) frequently doesn’t work. I can understand the countries that make it illegal to pay ransom (Mexico, Italy I believe).
A fellow I knew who spent time in the joint said that there, kidnapping is regarded as an amateur or flake’s crime.
Some of our Canadian friends can enlighten us more on this, but IIRC the government there once cut a deal with a serial killer (already in custody) to pay him a set sum of money for each of the shallow graves he’d made for his victims. I beleive the law at the time let the criminal keep his ill-gotten gains.
The Canadian police paid Clifford Olson to reveal the location of his victims’ bodies. I’m pretty sure the money went into a trust to support his wife and child.
What about the “Dr. Evil Scenario” where they hold the world hostage for … one million dollars? ::snicker::
Heres the link to the other thread btw