Sentencing to long prison sentences should be avoided. There should be two general categories:
- danger to others
- not danger to others
In the danger case the sentenced should be kept imprisoned until proven safe, otherwise only a light deterrent is needed.
There isn’t much difference in the deterrence between 1 year and 10 years for most people. The really violent crimes are committed either without regard for oneself, or as a part of organization that already has a support system inside the prison.
Justice shouldn’t he punitive, it should be rehabilitative. For that purpose, jail should only be used when there is no chance of rehabilitation and the person needs to be separated from society because they’re a danger to society.
I think it should be both. Punishment can be a good deterrent, and it’s really not possible to measure how much of an effect the deterrence has. You don’t have statistics on people who would have committed a crime if there weren’t harsh punishments.
I know it’s off topic but what has been proven to work best is to prevent crime by improving the lives of would-be criminals before they get to that situation. It’s cheaper and just better in every way.
I think there’s absolutely a middle ground where someone is currently a danger to society, but they’re capable of rehabilitation. However, we absolutely need to continue that work on the outside once it’s safe for them to be released if we want to reduce recidivism of violent crime.
depends on the definition of “danger to society”
Mandatory minimums are a problem. Judges lose discretion to tailor the punishment to the specifics of the case. Minimums may be pushed unreasonably high so politicians can claim to be “tough on crime.” (This happened big time in the US, starting with the War on Drugs in the 1970s and continuing through the 1990s.) Both of those lead to more people in prison longer than they should be.
Also, at least in the US, not all crimes carry mandatory minimum sentences. This gives prosecutors a new source of leverage:
The use of mandatory minimums effectively vests prosecutors with powerful sentencing discretion. The prosecutor controls the decision to charge a person with a mandatory-eligible crime and, in some states, the decision to apply the mandatory minimum to an eligible charge. Rather than eliminate discretion in sentencing, mandatory minimums therefore moved this power from judges to prosecutors. The threat of mandatory minimums also encourages defendants to plead to a different crime to avoid a stiff, mandatory sentence.
Mandatory minimums can also lead to significant racial disparities. The linked article cites an example of very different minimum sentences for different drug offenses, leading to a sharp rise in incarceration rates for blacks but much less so for whites.
The use of mandatory minimums effectively vests prosecutors with powerful sentencing discretion. The prosecutor controls the decision to charge a person with a mandatory-eligible crime
Wrong problem. Minimums and maximums are a bad workaround for this.
Obviously the prosecutor should not be the only person who can decide which crime to charge, or not to charge, and this decision should not be possible only at the beginning of the proceedings.
In our country the judge can easilly change the exact crime(s), and this is done very often, because it makes everybody’s life easier and the truth is served much better when this decision is made again after all evidence, witnesses etc. have been seen and heard.
Good point. I will add that to the long list of reforms we need in the US criminal system.
See that that list gets looked at too, would you?
There needs to be some parameters just to prevent someone from getting a slap on the wrist for a major crime or sent to the gulags for a minor offense.
Crime motive is subjective, judges are subjective, justice is an ideal that is served by mins and maxes. I can’t fall on either side of the question totally but I do think objective punishments for objectively proven crimes seems more just.
I think without them, the disparity in sentencing between race and gender would be even worse than it is (and it’s BAD), so… Probably a good thing overall?
Minimum sentences sounds like pretty bad. There is cases of legally wrong, morally right. Think about killing your violent spouse which while not being within the limit of self-defence is pretty different from killing your spouse. It’s the job of criminal lawyer and prosecutors to come with reason to give a lighter/harder sentence and the judge job to listen to this arguments, compared with similar cases and sentence guideline to give the fairest sentence possible.
A person who seek therapy, pay penalties to the victim, has now a job, and already try to be a better person at the time of sentencing has nothing to do in jail
What about unjustly light sentences though? Like a sex criminal who is let off easy because he’s white, has rich parents and was on track to get a high paying career?
Or someone can just skip prison and become leader of the country instead ahem USA ahem
Minimums help the judges not only to decide the punishment, also to see in advance which crime is worse than the other crime. Maximums could maybe help in a similar way.
Maximums are needed when stark punishments exist, like torture, death penalty or removing of body parts. These can be limited to specific crimes then.
Court discretion, many factors may influence a sentence and if you don’t trust the judge on that, I would say you have a much bigger problem in your hands.
