Crime costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year. Police,local, county and state, jails and prisons,courts, district attorneys and judges and whatever I may have left out are very costly and apparently very ineffective. These costs and the damage to victims are intolerable. In some types of crimes the perpetrator's car and other ill-gotten goods are confiscated. Wherever possible, whatever the crime, we should recover the costs of incarceration from any criminal with assets. On our toll roads we pay to ride, criminals should pay to use our jails. We house, feed cloth, educate and exercise them for free. We don't do that for law abiding citizens.
The sentencing of convicted criminals has always been a mystery to me. How can you assign a value to a crime to determine what the penalty should be? A robbery isn't just a robbery, it changes lives. Not only the victim, but family members as well are affected. The effects are lasting and life-altering. How do you factor that into a sentencing guideline? Some victims never recover from even some of the simpler crimes like a purse snatching. Victims are not required to recover from fear in a fixed period of time, so each case is different in the damage done.
This may sound facetious but somewhere in this there is a good idea. The harm to a victim, physical and/or psychological, not just the type of crime, should guide the sentencing. Some sort of formula which would provide for variable sentencing dependent upon the harm. Since the totality and duration of the harm cannot be known, the period of incarceration would vary in each case involving the same crime. For example, crime "x" carries a specific sentence. Added to that sentence would be the length of time a victim actually takes to recover, which could be never, multiplied a a specified factor. In cases of murder, the rule could be the difference between the age of the victim and whatever the average life expectancy is at the time, times some factor. If the formula produces a sentence which exceeds the life expectancy of the murderer, which would mean he could not complete the sentence, he should be executed.
Exceptions could be made if the victim asks that leniency be granted. After all, the victim is the only one who can forgive while at the same time the victim should have some input into the sentencing. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I say justice is in the eye of the offended.
Dumb?
The sentencing of convicted criminals has always been a mystery to me. How can you assign a value to a crime to determine what the penalty should be? A robbery isn't just a robbery, it changes lives. Not only the victim, but family members as well are affected. The effects are lasting and life-altering. How do you factor that into a sentencing guideline? Some victims never recover from even some of the simpler crimes like a purse snatching. Victims are not required to recover from fear in a fixed period of time, so each case is different in the damage done.
This may sound facetious but somewhere in this there is a good idea. The harm to a victim, physical and/or psychological, not just the type of crime, should guide the sentencing. Some sort of formula which would provide for variable sentencing dependent upon the harm. Since the totality and duration of the harm cannot be known, the period of incarceration would vary in each case involving the same crime. For example, crime "x" carries a specific sentence. Added to that sentence would be the length of time a victim actually takes to recover, which could be never, multiplied a a specified factor. In cases of murder, the rule could be the difference between the age of the victim and whatever the average life expectancy is at the time, times some factor. If the formula produces a sentence which exceeds the life expectancy of the murderer, which would mean he could not complete the sentence, he should be executed.
Exceptions could be made if the victim asks that leniency be granted. After all, the victim is the only one who can forgive while at the same time the victim should have some input into the sentencing. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I say justice is in the eye of the offended.
Dumb?
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