The Briefing
By Martin Peers
Supported by Standard Chartered
There’s
a case to be made that Holmes shouldn’t go to prison, though. After all, what
would it achieve? Her career as an entrepreneur is over. After a conviction on
charges of defrauding investors, it’s hard to imagine anyone would back her in
another venture. The U.S. imprisons people at a far higher
rate than any other country—and of course it is
disproportionately people of color who are the victims, not white people like
Holmes. Even so, we routinely accept prison as a penalty without thinking
through the logic of whether it makes sense.
And
it has to be said that there is a degree of unfairness in how Holmes has been
treated. Is she the only entrepreneur who has pushed past the line of hype and
exaggeration into outright falsehoods? Surely not. Holmes became a business
icon, in the media as much as among some investors, because she was a young
female founder—occupying a role usually played by men. That set her up for a
harder fall, but it doesn’t justify a prison sentence.
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