You can go to prison for that.
Doesn’t “kommen” imply that the speaker is already in prison? I would have expected “dafür kannst du ins Gefängnis gehen”. Or is this more like the use of “you could wind up in prison for that” or “you could land in prison for that” in English? Could you say “Dafür könnte man im Gefängnis geraten” or “Dafür könnte man sich im Gefängnis befinden”?
Doesn’t “kommen” imply that the speaker is already in prison?
No. At least not in this case, because…
Or is this more like the use of “you could wind up in prison for that” or “you could land in prison for that” in English?
Exactly!
I would have expected “dafür kannst du ins Gefängnis gehen ”.
That would probably also work, but it’s less idiomatic.
Could you say “Dafür könnte man im Gefängnis geraten”
Yes, but it would sound less idiomatic and more formal. Also: “im” → “ins” (or “in das”)
or “Dafür könnte man sich im Gefängnis befinden”?
I don’t think so. It is about going there, not being there. (“sich befinden” = “to be located”)
Maybe it’s possible to say “Du könntest dich im Gefängnis wiederfinden” (“You could/might find yourself in prison”), but that is also very formal.
Interesting. In English, it works either way:
“You could wind up in prison for that” (focus on end result: you are in prison)
“You could wind up going to prison for that” (focus on process of being sentenced to prison)
Well, you can “be” there after “going” there. “wind up”, “end up”, and “land” all hint at some process of getting there, not just the end result. “sich befinden” says nothing about a process. I think it makes just as little sense as saying the equivalent “You can be situated in prison for that” in english. The connection to the “for that” is somehow missing.
“Ich befinde mich im Gefängnis” is something a reporter might say when reporting from within a jail, but it’s not something that is done to you when you commit a crime.
“landen”, btw. also works fine in german: “Dafür kannst du im Gefängnis landen.”
or even: “Dafür kannst du im Knast landen.”