In criminal law, Blackstone's ratio is the idea that: It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. In practice, 2% - 10% might be the ratio of innocent people in US prisons. Some people argue that any innocent people punished are too many, and that if we can't guarantee anyone is 100% guilty, we should let all the guilty walk free. Such a policy produces an impoverished society rife with unsolved problems and limited prosperity. High GDP requires people to transact. People transact if they are confident in transaction safety. If people aren't confident, they second-guess every transaction and divert significant resources into individual security. The result are countries with low GDP, lots of corruption, backstabbing and poverty combined with barbed-wire fences and barred windows. Residents of high-GDP countries cannot imagine this, but countries with such quality of living do exist, and they are in fact a majority of low-GDP count