Crime and punishment

Published 2/27/08

I was thinking about the way we punish people from crime in this country, and it struck me how poorly considered it is.

I’m not talking about the whole "retribution vs. rehabilitation" issue — at least not directly. I’m talking about the general thought process we use in dealing with criminals.

Except for a few oddball cases, we deal with them in one of three ways: We incarcerate them, we make them pay money, or we execute them. And that’s it. We’re so used to it that we rarely consider how limited those options are.

Steal a car? Go to prison. Try to kill someone? Go to prison. Take a baseball bat to someone’s house? Go to prison. Bilk investors? Go to prison.

Doesn’t it seem that we ought to have more options? No, I’m not advocating cutting off a thief’s hands; we rightly have a knee-jerk reaction that doing so is barbaric. (Killing someone, though, is not, of course.)

But consider the thinking behind that kind of punishment. It deals with a particular crime in a particular and logical way, much like the people who advocate castrating rapists do.

We talk about "let the punishment fit the crime," but all we mean is "longer prison sentences for greater crimes."

Well, not all the time. For example, I see today that

Actress Rebecca Broussard was sentenced to jail time and morgue duty Monday after pleading no contest to a drinking and driving felony charge.

She was sentenced to do highway cleanup and to "participate in a hospital and morgue ‘Scared Straight’ program." I like the morgue duty; forcing a drunk driver to see these bodies makes sense, if that’s what will happen. Or a sentence of "visiting the families of people killed by drunk drivers" would also work.

This isn’t to say I have the answers, but I’m hoping it’ll be one of those cases where now that I’ve pointed it out, you’ll begin to notice it around you.

The Fray

4 responses (add yours)

ProfTheory says:

It could be a more effective approach to punishment to be more creative with it. I suspect the reason why it isn’t practiced more is the claim that it could be construed as cruel and unusual punishment.

February 28th, 2008 at 12:10 PM

gnomic says:

In today’s 2/28 NY Times, they report that 1 out of every 100 Americans is in jail.

The only good news about the upcoming recession (That would be the one Bush doesn’t believe in) is that states can’t afford to keep housing non-violent offenders.

February 28th, 2008 at 3:42 PM

Leland says:

I’m all in favor of creative sentencing. But that pesky ACLU keeps getting in the way. Their argument is that humiliation of the offender is cruel and unusual punishment.

I would love to see these errant white collar criminals forced to teach in the prisons. If they don’t like that, then they can pick up trash or slop the hogs on the prison farm.

There are lots of options if we could just get a reasonable ruling on cruel and unusual.

March 2nd, 2008 at 6:35 PM

Bailenforcer says:

For people who never had to deal with the criminal mind, it’s easy to dream up all kind of ineffective solutions. There are different types of criminals. 1. The criminal mind: this person enjoys crime period, they have what often seems like no soul, no remorse, no human emotions beyond what suits the. These people are more times than not beyond hope and are lifers so to speak. 2. The accidental criminal: this is the hapless idiot, or drunk party boy/girl gone bad. They do not mean to be this way they are just wreckless and can be rehabilitated.
3. The arrogant criminal: this is the “I got the shaft and I am getting even or I am getting what whats due” This one borders on a number one and might be helped by rehab but needs intervention FAST otherwise there will be a gravitation to the number one mindset the criminal mind.
4: Youthful offenders: these if caught very early have hope, beyond 13 years of age they start to harden in whatever mental framework they have lived in. Justice for these needs to be swift and painful so to speak. Youth homes are useless on these because the youth home is often a violent world in itself and after a number of rapes and assaults these kids are lost forever. A forced removal from enviorment is manditory even if for weeks or months into a extremely controlled atmosphere where not even the slightest conversation goes unnoticed, these are great boot camp candidates. BUT they should never be left alone even for a minute to become the victim of another child criminal, once that happens they loose all faith in the system and develop an attitude that the system is a farce because it didn’t protect them and they will believe the system is selective about whom is protected.

This comes from experience and 39 years in the inner city. Add 12 years now in the cou ntry and I still see the same basic mental framework.

March 6th, 2008 at 2:11 PM