I’m starting a new series addressing major flaws and myths in the criminal justice system.
Today’s topic: criminal sentencing.
America’s sentencing goals as we know them, aren’t doing much. A lot of it, is political theatre, unfortunately. It’s another flawed element of the “justice” system that requires massive overhaul.
Let’s jump in.
The Four Goals of Criminal Sentencing.
There are four main goals to criminal sentencing:
- Retribution (the concept that people deserve to be punished)
- Rehabilitation (the idea of correcting the behavior and making someone better)
- Deterrence (the belief that other people won’t do it because they see someone else get in trouble for it)
- Incapacitation (removing someone from society for the purpose of protecting the public)
Let’s examine each goal and see where things are going wrong.
Retribution
There is not a parent alive who doesn’t know this scenario: you put a kid in timeout. A few weeks later, they’re in timeout again.
Why?
Because Retribution does nothing to prevent future behavior and it can’t change the past.
In short: it’s useless. Unless you address underlying issues through rehabilitation, the problem will never truly be fixed.
Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation DOES work. Sadly, there are judges and prosecutors who outright oppose it, even going out of their way to eliminate options for rehabilitation.
That leaves the burden on prisons and many of them are not great at rehab. If prisons do not offer evidence-informed policies and programs that help incarcerated individuals get better as well as safety nets that ensure their success upon reentry, they will likely engage in criminal activity again.
Deterrence
I don’t know how many times I need to repeat this, but punishment is not a deterrence for crime.
Again, punishment is 200% NOT a deterrent for crime and hasn’t been for over 200 YEARS. Yes, you read that correctly: over 200 years.
I read this in my History of Criminal Justice textbook, and it is an example I STILL enjoy bringing to people’s attention.
In the 1800s, pick-pocketing was an offense punishable by public hanging. Let me reiterate that: DEATH by the hanging of a person by their neck, in a PUBLIC square for all to see.
Guess what happened?
Pick-pockets targeted spectators at hangings, anyway.
Even with a visual reminder that if they were caught and convicted of the crime, they would DIE, they did it anyway.
Why? Because it didn’t address the underlying issues of criminal behavior.
The point here, is that no one is thinking about a potential sentence in the commission of a crime (duh).
Incapacitation
So that leaves us with the final goal: incapacitation of an individual to keep the public “safe.”
Sorry, this is most of the time, an outright lie.
Consider these figures:
- 72.1% of people in Federal prison are serving time for a non-violent offense and are first-time offenders.
- 40% of the US population is behind bars for no reason.
- Many people are held in jails for non-violent, poverty-related reasons, such as failing to pay fines, fees, and child support.
It’s NOT Working. Now What?
Follow the data and adopt evidence-informed policies, such as:
- Redirecting public spending on programs that actually address the underlying causes of criminal behavior.
- Changing the incentive structure for prosecutors and judges, where they are encouraged to rehabilitate rather than incarcerate under the guise of “helping the community.”
- Paying attention to whether your elected officials actually pay attention to data. If they don’t? Vote them out.
It’s going to take a lot of work, but it’s work worth doing to change the flawed and harmful structure in place today.
