USA's Laws Are Too Soft On Crime

[Revoltingest]

Generally, I lean way left on politics. You can call me a progressive or a liberal --- except on criminal justice. On this issue, the conservatives are right: our laws are too soft on crime.

Do you agree with these goals?

-- The goal of all decision-making systems should be to make the correct decision as consistently as humanly possible.

-- The primary goal of a criminal justice system should be to protect innocent citizens from serious harm.

If those goals seem right to you, then it might surprise you to learn that the USA's criminal justice system isn't designed to accomplish either goal. Its goal is based on the Blackstone Ratio.

In criminal law, Blackstone's ratio (also known as the Blackstone's formulation) is the idea that: It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. While the idea of convicting the innocent is revolting, avoiding it should not be the primary goal.

The result of the Blackstone goal is a body of laws that go overboard in favor of the accused. At the same time, these laws make it difficult to convict the guilty thus undermining the goals of making the correct decisions as consistently as possible along with the goal of protecting innocent citizens from serious harm.

Our justice system isn't very good at rendering justice but it's been a boon for the movie industry. The arrogant killer skating free on a technicality, the tough cop who goes outside the law to render justice, the prosecutor who cheats to get convictions, the relative of the victim hellbent on vengeance, these characters are staples in Hollywood dramas as art imitates American life.

At the moment, the problem of racism's effect on our criminal justice system is on our mind -- and there's no doubt about it -- racism is a serious problem in criminal justice. But it's just one of the problems of a poorly designed system

The conservatives are right on this issue. Because of the Blackstone Blunder, our laws are too soft on crime.

Your thoughts?

We're not too soft on crime.
We're too inconsistent.
Petty & victimless crimes are punished
either not at all or extremely harshly.
And prisons range from country clubs to torture chambers.
Those aren't mere stereotypes....I have friends & acquaintances
who've been imprisoned in & even worked in both. One thing
all those had in common....there was no rehabilitation.

 

[joe1776]

There is not fair in the end about this. You believe based on what you want a sentence to be. You then get another human out on the other end based on how you treated that human. Including how "harsh" you are.

Having all the facts, an unbiased group, like a jury, should be able to arrive at a fair sentence.

 

[joe1776]

We're not too soft on crime.
We're too inconsistent.
Petty & victimless crimes are punished
either not at all or extremely harshly.
And prisons range from country clubs to torture chambers.
Those aren't mere stereotypes....I have friends & acquaintances
who've been imprisoned in & even worked in both. One thing
all those had in common....there was no rehabilitation.

There's that also.

Victimless crimes shouldn't be crimes. That's why I specified that the goal should be to protect innocent citizens from serious harm.

 

[Revoltingest]

Having all the facts, an unbiased group, like a jury, should be able to arrive at a fair sentence.

Juries have tremendous biases.
They're just members of the masses randomly selected.
Ever served on a jury?

 

[Revoltingest]

There's that also.

Victimless crimes shouldn't be crimes. That's why I specified that the goal should be to protect innocent citizens from serious harm.

You & I are in a small minority about that.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Having all the facts, an unbiased group, like a jury, should be able to arrive at a fair sentence.

There are no unbiased version of fair. All versions of fair are in favor of one understanding and against another. Even what you mean a sentence is and what it means to go to prison is, is a bias. That is also for me. I just know that.
Fair is in the eye of the beholder.

If you want a debate of that you have to acknowledge that.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

There's that also.

Victimless crimes shouldn't be crimes. That's why I specified that the goal should be to protect innocent citizens from serious harm.

BTW Harm is also subjective and a form of bias.

 

[exchemist]

Any suggestions on where I might begin?

Denmark, I think, has a low prison population and a fairly effective rehab programme to prevent re-offending.

https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/the-danish-prison-system

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Denmark, I think, has a low prison population and a fairly effective rehab programme to prevent re-offending.

https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/the-danish-prison-system

Glad you mentioned Denmark, but I seem to recall Norway is doing better.

 

[joe1776]

There are no unbiased version of fair. All versions of fair are in favor of one understanding and against another. Even what you mean a sentence is and what it means to go to prison is, is a bias. That is also for me. I just know that.
Fair is in the eye of the beholder.

If you want a debate of that you have to acknowledge that.

We can't debate this because to you the word bias means something different than it does to me.

The word "bias" to me refers to an opinion capable of sending a judgment off its correct course.

So, with he intuition of conscience, unbiased minds are capable of judging a fair sentence.

 

[Revoltingest]

Glad you mentioned Denmark, but I seem to recall Norway is doing better.

Serving lutefisk in prison keeps people on the straight & narrow.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

We can't debate this because to you the word bias means something different than it does to me.

The word "bias" to me refers to an opinion capable of sending a judgment off its correct course.

So, with he intuition of conscience, unbiased minds are capable of judging a fair sentence.

Oh, we have been here before. You understand experience, knowledge morality differently. I forgot. Well, I will stop, because we end up doing philosophy.

 

[joe1776]

Denmark, I think, has a low prison population and a fairly effective rehab programme to prevent re-offending.

https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/the-danish-prison-system

Thanks for the link. That's an interesting program. I don't know how well it would work in the USA, but we Americans need to try something different. What we have isn't working.

 

[Twilight Hue]

It would also help immensely if people stop making crimes out of innocent and ridiculous things.

Not surprising seeing incarceration rates when you have laws that have far surpassed in number, the entire volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica and War and Peace combined.

Many of them could be considered as double charges or even triple for one said crime.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Thanks for the link. That's an interesting program. I don't know how well it would work in the USA, but we Americans need to try something different. What we have isn't working.

They won't ever stop making more and more laws and jailing more and more people for just about everything under the sun. That's with either party in the US.

Now with the privatization of prisons, I think it's going to get even worse than it ever was. sentencing and incarcerating people is getting to be a very very lucrative business.

 

[joe1776]

They won't ever stop making more and more laws and jailing more and more people for just about everything under the sun. That's with either party in the US..

One of my progressive opinions is that drugs should be legalized. Where do you stand on that?

 

[Polymath257]

-- The goal of all decision-making systems should be to make the correct decision as consistently as humanly possible.

-- The primary goal of a criminal justice system should be to protect innocent citizens from serious harm.

That is *one* of the primary goals, but not the only one, by far. Rehabilitation, for example, is a worthy goal.

But you seem to not understand that your 'Blackstone ratio' is precisely aimed at the second problem. In particular, convicting and incarcerating an innocent person would be a serious harm of the exact sort that would violate this 'primary' goal. And it would be perpetrated by the government itself, making the whole thing even worse.

So, yes, I do think it is far worse to incarcerate a single innocent person than it would be to fail to convict several guilty ones. We always have another chance to get a repeat offender. But the harm done to an innocent convicted is serious and to be avoided, even by your standard.

 

[Twilight Hue]

One of my progressive opinions is that drugs should be legalized. Where do you stand on that?

I would go with professional medical opinions as to whether any drug would be harmless or harmful as a legalized substance.

I'm guessing alcohol would be a good template as a threshold on what should be allowed and not allowed.

 

[exchemist]

Thanks for the link. That's an interesting program. I don't know how well it would work in the USA, but we Americans need to try something different. What we have isn't working.

I agree with that. The UK prison population is also too high, though nowhere near US levels, and we have very high rates of reoffending.

The Howard League for Penal Reform The Howard League | Home is a charity I have supported for many years now, ever since we had a fool of Conservative Party leader who claimed that "prison works". (This remark was why I voted for Blair in 1997 ). Prison only "works" in the sense of taking criminals out of circulation for a while, but it does little or nothing to change their behaviour to prevent re-offending and of course it does nothing to reduce the impulses towards crime in the community more generally (poverty, drugs, mental health, distrust of law enforcement in certain communities, etc.). All too often, people on the political Right take a vindictive attitude towards criminals, which makes for easy wins in grandstanding speeches but does nothing to reduce crime and simply makes the problems worse.

 

[exchemist]

One of my progressive opinions is that drugs should be legalized. Where do you stand on that?

I agree. Legalise them, but accompanied by a serious, well-funded, long-term public information campaign about the dangers of drug abuse. The parallels with Prohibition and the rise of the mafia are obvious.