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From this answer about The Dark Knight Rises:

John Blake to Gordon: Those men locked up for eight years in Blackgate, and denied parole under the Dent Act, based on a lie?

As the answer explains,

The Dent Act. among all things puts dangerous and important cogs of the organised crime world into prison with no possibility of parole. So essentially they are not gonna see the light of the day till a long long time and deter people from being involved in such activities.

Is it bad, to put cogs in organised crime and put such people in prison for 8 years and deter them from such activities? What he complain about?

Perhaps they put them in prison with no real evidence?

If so, why didn't they do that earlier? What allowed them to it and how is Dent related to this?

Are they sure they actually did anything bad?

Napoleon Wilson
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R S
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2 Answers2

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Perhaps they put them in prison with no real evidence?

No, they were properly convicted (it seems).

What the Dent Act did was deny those properly convicted early parole meaning they had to serve their full sentences (sometimes up to 20 years).

What he complain about?

What he is complaining about is that Harvey Dent was a murderer and so "justice" in his name is not appropriate.

As your link in the question states in the primary answer (What is the Dent act and how it could possibly work out?):

After 18 months of jail time, according to the mayor, the men would try to appeal by using any dirt about Harvey. But since Batman took the fall for Dent, there wasn't any dirt to be found so the criminals were locked up still.

Laurel
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Paulie_D
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The problem with The Dent Act, was Dent himself. Harvey's convictions relied on him being a fair, impartial, and above all LEGAL District Attorney. When he became Two-Face, his first acts were to kill two police officers(dirty yeah, but they WERE still cops), the driver of a mob figure(and I think the mob boss Moroni himself) and kidnap Gordon's entire family to hold them hostage.

Any lawyer will eagerly tell you this is more than enough evidence to cast doubts as to the judgement and professional objective discretion a DA is required to maintain in order to perform their job. Because of that, every criminal Dent put away, from mob bosses to jaywalkers, COULD make a legal case that Dent didn't do his job properly. The BIG problem with that, was that Dent racked up 549 mob bosses or personnel....549 separate cases that need to be re-tried, all the evidence re-examined...ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

TDKR showed that Gordon compounded the problem, by allowing Dent's true nature to be hidden, and Mayor Garcia used the Dent Act to CONTINUE imprisoning and arresting up and coming mob figures. So instead of 549 separate cases...The Dent Act allowed over 1,000 individuals to be arrested and held without trial, and those who WERE tried, to be held without a chance of parole.

The Dent Act became a form of "Star Chamber Justice," where the government decides guilt or innocence based on expediency and arbitrary rulings that facilitate the needs of the government, rather than whether or not a person actually committed the crime. It was convenient for Gotham to be able to lock up the mob without evidence, without a court order. It was convenient for Gotham to KEEP the mob locked up, while the government tried to rebuild Gotham City. The surety of the STATE, was more important than justice: that, is why the Dent Act was bad.

Khasym
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