. . . I shall achieve in time:
To let the punishment fit the crime
The punishment fit the crime.
I had mixed feelings reading this story, which reveals that one in 75 American men is in prison. On the one hand, I’m very much in favor of strong sentencing laws, and the crime rate is down. If figures like that are really needed to control the crime problem, I don’t have a problem with it.
On the other hand, I’m not convinced that chucking people in prison is always the best way for malefactors to be punished. Corporal punishment is an alternative to prison that has served many societies well and is less harmful to a person’s ability to lead a productive, law-abiding life after punishment than prison is. Some countries that use it have fewer people in prison and also have lower crime rates (remember the whole Singapore caning controversy from a few years ago?). Prison, by contrast, tends to serve as simply a school in how commit further crimes and that hardens criminal in a destructive lifestyle.
I also have a basic desire to see justice be done, and this means that the punishment must fit the crime. For some crimes, punishments are presently waaaay out of whack with the actual harm caused by the crime.
A few years ago I was making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and on the flight to Tel Aviv the stewardesses (who were remarkably surly with the passengers–to the point of unprofessionalism) began threatening the passengers with $50,000 fines for lighting a cigarette outside of the smoking area. I’m sorry, but no matter how much one may oppose smoking, the idea that lighting a cigarette in the non-smoking section does $50,000 worth of damage to the community is simply crazy.
A similar area where the punishment is way out of whack with reality is in copyright law. Punishing offenders who are pirating copyrighted works for sale is one thing, but hitting people with $540,000 law suits because their daughters downloaded a few songs from the Internet for private use is similarly bonkers. The songs themselves would cost a few dollars, and even magnifying the fine for the bad example set by the offending daughters setting a bad example for others, one still comes nowhere near the kind of life-ruining damage done by the potential fine. The punishment is simply incommensurate with the offense and thus unjust.
As long as whacko special interest groups are able to get legislation like this passed to protect their interests with the threat of massive retaliation, though, I don’t see this changing.
Here in Nebraska, non-violent, first-time felons can be sent to a relatively new outfit called the Work Ethic Camp – http://www.corrections.state.ne.us/institutions/wec.html .
They get rehab, classes, whatever else they need, and 18 hours a day of good, hard labor. It’s too early to measure for good, but the recidivism rate is extremely low, meaning the criminals actually get better.
To my knowledge, there’s a similar program in Pennsylvania, and none others in the country.
Nebraska’s WEC is just north of where I live, and my dear old dad is the superintendent.
Here’s an interesting article you all might be interested in:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/crime/ny-uspris163814307may23,0,3366725,print.story?coll=ny-licrime-headlines
As for the regular prison system…forgive my naivety…but how do illegal drugs get into our prisons? I can understand the odd corrupt guard bringing them in…but you’d think it would be easy to prevent prison drug trade when you can control everything that gets in or out of a prison…is the prison drug problem not as bad as I think it it? Have I been watching too many bad movies? I remember watching a documentary once on our Canadian prisons that said a large number of immates (something like 70%…don’t remember exactly) have caught Hepatitis C due to dirty needles (for drugs or tattoos).
Hey Jimmy, posting is still pretty slow for me…but not quite as bad as before.
Theres always that old saying about idle hands and the devils work. I have always said they are not there to have a vacation from society and there crimes, being locked up does not make it punishment when they have things like TV and other entertainment. Nothing like a rock quarry to make a man wish he had not done wrong. It has to be punishing to be an actual deterent to commit crime a second time.