I believe in consequences and paying for what you do. However locking people in a cell for most of what should be their most productive years as a member of society does not benefit society or the person who has made a mistake and should make amends....
In many cases those years are not their most productive to society, they're the most destructive.
What should a punishment do ?
IMO it should first and foremost act as a deterrent to the criminal. If they didn't consider the possible consequences when the committed their crime, the deterrence factor was lost.
he news is full of shootings/murders by young men who probably never considered the consequences for their action - the shooter in the recent San Antonio shooting was 19. He has now wrecked his life - do you think the death penalty or a life time in prison entered his mind as he pulled the trigger ?
Secondly it should be to reform and rehabilitate - but if the sentence is 20, 30 years or more, honestly what is the point ?
However if the penalties for committing a crime aren't severe, how do we hope to prevent them ?
It cost taxpayers money and benefits no one....
You've probably heard that it costs more to keep someone in jail for a year than it costs to send them to college for a year.
That may or not be true, but yes prison is expensive and the US has a HUGE prison population...but you say it benefits no-one, what about the people who otherwise would be victims if the criminal wasn't in jail ?
It clearly does not detour people from making mistakes or committing crimes, it does not make amends to people wronged, it does not make the person better only worse, and takes a potential productive member of society and turns them into a burden on society. Anything would most likely be a better solution that the pathetic mess we call our prisons today.
I think you mean "deter" and maybe it does, but we'll just never know the names of the people who didn't commit a crime because of their fear of the consequences if caught.
IMO, prison does make a person worse in may cases. In many others it makes them unemployable...an alternative to prison isn't treatment. There is no changing people from what they are....only time can do that.
We might experiment with non-violent cases only first. Make people check into a jail on weekends perhaps?
Make them pay a larger finer spread over many, many years ?
What would people fear ?
