Welcoem to posts!!

Fluteless
Posted 2 years ago

Notes on the prison sentences from the recent video (Disney heroes charges pt 2):

• First I want to explain why there haven't been sentences in the videos up to this point. Back when I made Part 1 in 2019, I did initially want to include the sentences, but it took me like a month to edit that video, and the sentences required quite a bit of research I wasn't sure how to conduct back then, and since I wasn't even sure how well the video would do when I was making it, I decided to just focus on the charges. Jump to summer 2022, suddenly that first video got a huge huge boost of viewership (from about 20K thousand to hundreds of thousands**), and I had noted in the description that if the first video would do well, I'd make more. So make more I did, but I didn't want to mess up the format of the videos, so I left out the sentences in the consecutive videos too.

• The other reason why I've been apprehensive about including the sentences has more to do with just how pedantic my mind is. Penalties for crimes vary so so much between countries and states. What's a penalty for a crime in New York may be different from the penalty in California, so there's no "exact science" for how these things work. Furthermore, many criminals get a sentence that is far below the maximum penalty written in the criminal code. So with all of these uncertainties and variables, I didn't feel confident in including the sentences. All of that said, I fully recognize that most viewers just want a number for prison time purely for entertainment value, so I just had to come up with a "system" I would be comfortable with for the video.

• Regarding the methodology for the sentences as seen in the video — I opted to use the penal code of the state of New York as the basis for determining the prison sentences. What you see in the video is the maximum amount of imprisonment time people may get for these crimes in New York. In a perfect world, I would also add the minimum sentence so there'd be less ambiguity, but some crimes don't have a specified minimum and so the court may decide whatever it decides. To put this into perspective, Maui could face in theory as little as 8-10 years, and as much as 60. This is such a huge range that I'm not sure if the viewers get something out of this (which again speaks to my apprehension to do the sentences in the first place lol). I suppose I can pose this as a question, then: Do you want ESTIMATED minimum sentences in addition to the maximum?

• A few sentences are based on other sources because obviously NY's code doesn't encompass every possible thing. For example, Mulan's fraudulent enlistment is a military matter, which has different a code. Another specific one is Aladdin lying about being a prince and his origins, so the sentence I used for that one is based on Title 18 U.S. Code § 915, which is about pretending to be foreign diplomats or officials (which has an imprisonment time of up to 10 years).

• Felonies and misdemeanors often carry with them fines. At first I thought I'd include the fines too, but honestly, it didn't turn out to be such interesting numbers because in most cases, fines for felonies in NY are maxed at $5000 (and $1000 for misdemeanors). I'll later probably do another community post and write the max fines for the characters just if anyone's curious.

**If anyone's curious how a video from 2019 suddenly got a huge boost of viewership in August, this was likely due to some weird youtube algorithm magic. It took me a few days to figure it out, but apparently a bigger channel called Wickedbinge (I think that's the name, too lazy to double check) did a video about "sentencing disney villains" so my best guess is that due to their video, youtube recommended to viewers my first Disney Villains Crimes video on the homepage.

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