The Supreme Court struggled Tuesday with how much discretion Justice Department lawyer Michael Dreeben, seeking to win longer sentences for … two men, urged an approach used by many appeals courts. It demands that a sentence varying significantly from the guidelines be justified by a rationale that is equally weighty.
Justice John Paul Stevens wondered if that test was too vague: "How do you measure the strength of the justifications?"
The Jailhouse Lawyer would no doubt have much to say on this and to put it in simplistic terms for the layman such as myself, the argument seems to boil down to whether:
# sentences should be statutory and if so, who determines which crime carries which sentence;
# sentences should be discretionary for justices and if so, whether this should be cross the board or whether it should be within defined limits, with "weighting" given to certain offences. The "three strikes and you're out" approach is part of this argument.
I don't know the answer to this but what I do know is that with the move to the new feudalism, there are going to be many more citizens incarcerated than formerly. The frightening new U.K. Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the
Just look at Phil A's post for a start.
So perhaps it's time to think more laterally than the fines and/or incarceration which dominates and if taken too far, leads to prison hulks and transportation to
Forbes ran an article on this, offering ten alternatives, including:
...drug treatment, faith based inner change [which I personally know to be the most efficacious], pay for prison stay, community based project for violence prevention, rich crims teaching in poor schools, car ignition interlocks, living in a slum for a period of time, chemical castration, abolish prison and invest in housing, facilities etc., billboard naming and shaming...
My own view is that elements of these, like community service for the victims or class of victims seems advantageous but this wouldn't work for crimes on the self, such as drug use, which perhaps should be decriminalized.
The very best way is for the individual to fill the hole of envious malevolence and materialism with spiritual wholeness but nobody seems to want to know about weirdo things like that.
Prisons are full to bursting in the UK. I agree that change from the inside is the only real answer.
ReplyDeleteLast Sunday I was part of a team taking the services in our local prison. One of the services we take is in the Segregated Unit. Afterwards the chaplain told us about one of the lads (about 22 years old) who'd come along to the Seg service. When he was first in he was desperately suicidal. The chaplain spent many hours with him, listening and talking (and knowing this particular chaplain it wouldn't have been an ear-bashing), and the young lad has come on so much. He's not become a Christian - but he's alive and glad to be, and he's experienced the love of Christ through the chaplain.
I wanted to write about this on my blog but it wasn't appropriate to do so for fear of identifying the people involved (in some obscure way), but buried in the comments on someone else's blog, it (and the young lad) should be unidentifiable.
L
I agree the two should be unidentifiable but it would be nice to see your blog. Interesting comment and thank you.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem to me that the main class of person in prisons - the priority prisoner is solely those who are a danger to other people. Many other kinds of punishment would be more useful in other cases and might offer routes to not re-offending.
ReplyDeleteThey'll have to reclassify soon, Mutley.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post James. On this front I was listening to a radio 4 program from a couple of months ago highlighting the work of Billy Bragg, the musician. He has just started a charity to buy guitars to send to prison. Apparantly prisoners who get involved in art and music are 10% likely to reoffend whereas the figure for the rest is 60%- probably some change going on inside in those cases as well
ReplyDeleteWhen it costs in the region of £50,000 per year to imprison someone for that length of time, compared to how much it would cost for someone to go to university for a year. Or, go on a boxing course arranged in the community for £800. Prison should be used in the last resort, deprivation of liberty is a serious sanction. If it is human warehousing, £50,000 is hell of a lot to waste willy nilly. If public protection can be best served in some other way than incarceration, it pays to make use of this. Putting people in prison just for the sake of it only puts money in the pockets of owners of construction companies. Naturally, they support imprisonment because it profits them to do so.
ReplyDeleteJustice should not be a business.
Sentencing needs a positive approach to see what can be made out of a negative situation. A turn around is better than a loss. The Restorative Model has much to offer. Offenders and victims coming face to face to confront their beliefs and conduct. Making reparations that build rather than employing institutions which only serve to destroy.
There is a need for prison for those whom no alternative would appear to be appropriate. However, lets not waste humanity, money and time seeking revenge. The prison population could safely be reduced to approximately 20,000. A smaller more manageable system is the way to go forward in sentencing.
John - a sane and rational approach and the state must but won't consider it. They can't because they need the threat of incarceration or worse to carry out their agenda. There's a lot of politics in here.
ReplyDeletefor crimes on the self, such as drug use, which perhaps should be decriminalized.
ReplyDeleteNo easy answers to what you've raised in this post James, so I'll focus on this one thing. Crimes on the self unfortunately extend to the community in that drunk people drive and put others at risk and drug users often commit robberies or resort to prostitution. So to fix that are you going to give free drugs to addicts? So then we, as a society, support their habit?
Sorry can't support this idea.
...you going to give free drugs to addicts...
ReplyDeleteAlas, you put words in my mouth here, JMB. I said nothing of this - jsut that crimes on the self, like drugs, should be decriminalized on the grounds of cost to society. Crimes committed by that person are of course criminal.
As for supplying drugs, how did this come into the discussion?
I used to work with people just reentering, who were pedophiles or sexual offenders. Almost all of them were paranoid about getting jumped. Especially when the fliers were distributed around the neighborhood. Well, I heard about 6 months ago, Schwarzenegger ok'd $7.2 billion just to beef up the existing California prisons. Sheez, for THAT kind of money, a whole TOWN could have been built, for people 21 and over. Think... no pre- or grammer or high schools, no day care centers, no children in the parks. Ex-offenders could live and work anywhere they wanted, and since the whole town would pretty much be ex-offenders, they wouldn't have to feel threatened. Both the children and the ex-offenders would be safe.
ReplyDelete