I'm not talking guilt here, just how the system delivers punishment after guilt is decided.
It seems really messed up to me, someone who embezzles will get 25+ years, but a child molester or rapist will get 10 years or less. It seems like it should be reversed so the white-collar criminal can be forced to repay what they stole.I have also seen cases where someone fell asleep at the wheel, drifted into oncoming traffic and kill people and get an infraction ticket for failure to maintain control, or someone who didn't take care of their tires and when they got down to threads exploded and killed a motorcyclist traveling next to it, or a van that pulled out in front of a motorcyclist, killing the cyclist.
All these people broke the law, no doubt at all but not one of those killers ever served any time for breaking the law that lead to the death of others. They all got tickets instead.
If a crime can potentially be undone through acts of repayments I would think that is what should be forced to happen. If there is no way to undo it, then they should get a very harsh long sentence.
If a victim is sentenced to a lifelong sentence for the crime perpetrated on them, I think the offender should also be sentenced until the victim is no longer living in their sentence. This means any crime that has a lifelong effect on someone, the perp gets a life sentence.
I can tell that the laws are written by rich business owning politicians for sure, to protect themselves and their assets. As businesses have the highest penalty when a crime is perpetuated against them but lives have no value if you kill someone while driving and break the law. That is just an unfortunate accident, even though if they had been following the law it never would of happened.
Then the whole life sentence thing and people still getting out with a life sentence, means life sentence means nothing anymore.
How messed up do you think all this is?
Does the way society punishes people for crimes seem really unbalanced and mess up to you?
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Ehh... I’m not sure it’s as wild as you make it out. Most states in the US have similar consequences for certain crimes. But context is key. Did the prosecutor have enough evidence? If not they plea bargain.
Id complain about the 90% plea bargain rate in all trials. That seems way too high. And thus why rich people with expensive lawyers get off while poor people do time they sometimes don’t deserve.
That is definitely one of the issues I have with it, representation is not equal. A public defenders are overloaded and often tell people to dress nice and act sorry (I've seen it in person) with no regards to if they are innocent or guilty. While people with resources can hire nice attorney's to get them the best defense.
It’s difficult to justify a true life sentence to someone who had no intention to cause harm even though his or her actions or inactions resulted in the death of someone else.
Manslaughter isn't a life sentence. That seems appropriate to me for someone who's actions while driving resulted in unintentional loss of life. As I don't understand how someone can literally kill someone and only get a ticket for it.
Probably, and different states call things differently.
It has just bugged me that someone who is target shooting and a bullet hits a rock and kills someone gets jail time but someone driving a car who does something unintentional that also kills someone only gets a infraction ticket.
Neither one intended nor wanted anyone to get hurt... a car is a deadly weapon, everyone knows that. Not properly maintained.
I do see some cases where even a properly maintained vehicle might throw a rod, and could kill someone where there is nothing the driver could of done to prevent that. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm not a mechanic maybe there is something that could prevent that.
To me it is all if they could of done something and didn't.
Because the guy that was target shooting intentionally engaged in conduct that any reasonable person should have known would create a substantial risk of death or serious injury to someone else, yet chose to do so anyway, hence manslaughter, the more serious charge. Negligent homicide is exactly the scenario that you’re describing.
Driving a car you know with bald tires or bad breaks, would or should qualify as someone engaging in behavior that creates a substantial risk for all around them on the roads, or even sidewalks if driving by.
Or like the people that don't tie their loads down, geez had a king mattress fly right at me once, missed me but caused a bunch of cars to crash and what if someone got killed from that?
1. should be proportionate to the harm caused, 2. be based, in part, on the person's prior record, and 3. nonetheless involves a large amount of discretion.
It is impossible to discuss cases in the abstract. If you would like to post the facts about a particular criinal sentencing, I would be happy to try to address - if I can -questions about that case.
More that it seems that financial crimes get massive sentences but physical violent ones like rape or beating the tar out of someone, making life long victims will get short sentences. Even though their victims now have a lifetime sentence. No particular case comes to mind but I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.
I don't think punishing someone for something they had no intent for the same way as someone who did something with full intent makes sense... Sure there should be consequences, but what good would unnuanced "eye for eye" politics actually do? Maybe I'm misinterpreting but it sounds like you have had some bad experience in that matter, I'm very sorry for that. Hopefully whatever happend will be resolved well for you. I agree though that the punishment of crimes in the US seems very biased and senseless. Bails can be set without regulation by the judge. The bailing industry has become a billion dollar industry. Prisons are privatized. First with well intention but now state's are contractually bound to provide the private prisons with a certain amount of prisoners, or else they will have to pay a compensation payment. Now they intentionally lengthen the prisoners sentences uselessly. And so many more things... This all comes back to u tax payers. Its really so confusing and does not make any sense...
That is one of the messed up things here, someone can be target shooting in the mountains and a bullet hits a rock and ricochet and kills a friend, and they go to jail for it. They didn't even break a law in the process either, just pure bad luck in a accident.
Someone can be driving a car though, fall sleep or not maintain it and be breaking laws and kill someone and only get a ticket. They still did not intend to do it, but had they been following the law, the person never would of died.
In the first example, I'd say no jail time because no law they could of been following that would of saved the other, but in the car example all they needed to do was follow the law and no one would of died.
They don't need a life time sentence though but it should be tough enough that others would never think of doing it again. For all I care a forever ban on having a driver license would be fine. As long as driving without a license is a felony with a minimum sentence.
Yes the justice system is really messed up. But I hardly think that someone should have to go to prison if they’re tire exploded, and I get that you said their tire got bald and they didn’t maintain it, but what happens when it’s a single mom and she’s barely getting by paying the bills and her tires are starting to get a little bald. She needs to get to work or she won’t even be able to buy food let alone tires. And on her way to work the next morning the tire explodes and someone ends up dying as a result? Should anyone go to prison there? I don’t think so but people who steal money getting more time in prison than people who raped children? As a woman who was raped as a child… Yes that’s very EFFED up
The reason why they failed is not important as it isn't a excuse legally. If the law requires you have tires, brakes, etc... in proper working condition and cannot afford it the law says you cannot drive until it meets all the legal requirements.
How would you feel if that was your family member, spouse, mother, father, child that got killed if someone did not maintain their vehicle? Would you forgive them and not worry if it was a single mother who couldn't afford new tires?
What kind of penalty do you think someone should get if they failed to maintain their car and killed someone? If not jail time then what should it be for killing someone? Since they took a life and likely created a ripple effect, could potentially have killed a single parent and now leaving the children with no parent.
Yeah, it is definitely a complicated situation. I’ve just always always thought that thinking about a situation with as much compassion as is humanly possible is always the better way to go. Who wins if two lives are destroyed rather than just one? Did the driver plan to kill anyone? No! It’s easy to say she shouldn’t drive the car, but then how does she get to work to pay for housing and food? This isn’t some abstract, real human beings face every day not knowing how they are going to pay the rent of feed their kids. And I just think that there is a difference between someone who should have bought new tires, and someone who robs a liquor store and the gun accidentally went off
Just look how long some middle class people can get locked up for not paying tax. And how the rich just pay lots of lawyers to legally avoid it. And if they happen to make some mistake that would have gotten normal people in jail they can often times avoid it again with the help of money and lawyers
so it’s not only that certain crimes r getting too mild of a punishment. Others r way too hard and especially the fact that wealthy people get a lot less punished for the same crimes need to get solved
I agree, white collar crimes involving money, like not paying taxes or embezzling, people end up with decades in prison... but violent crimes like assaulting someone, raping, child abuse, etc. or things like that they get 5 or 10 years, give or take.
You can tell people who own businesses and work for the government care more about money than about the actual crimes and how they've passed the laws.
I say those white collar money crimes, they should not serve time in prison they should be forced to work and pay it back. Sure its kind of like slavery but no different than when a court orders someone to pay back restitution.
No one can pay back taxes or money they stole if they are locked up for decades... that is so stupid.
Prison sentence is ineffective for behavioral issues. For example drug use, minor sexual crimes, negligence ie lazy behaviors... prison or jail time just causes loss of job, housing, and relationships. Loss of these things leads to additional criminal behaviors.
Say you get in trouble for DUI and drug possession charges and are sentenced to a short jail stay 60 days. You get out of jail and you now have no job, you have been evicted out of your apartment and your girlfriend cheated on you. Now if you're already drinking and doing drugs... whats your next move? Probably straight to the liquor store to continue making dumb decisions. What would be effective? Public caning. This is used in other countries and i believe its quite effective. It also doesn't interfere in peoples lives ruining their life situations further pushing them down a bad path.
For a 60 day sentence here, for a DUI they allow people to serve weekends until completed. No free weekends for quite awhile while keeping your job. If your job is not M-F then whatever days you get off each week, two days a week.
What would you suggest for a DUI penalty? They could of killed a lot of people, just got lucky a cop got them first.
Maybe something like, revoke license with a lifetime ban on not ever having one and then making it a felony to drive without a license? Which 5 years minimum to discourage driving without one?
That would at least keep people safe from the DUI driving down the road.
What is your suggestion on how it should be handled?
Like i said, messing up someones life causes future bad behavior, see criminal recidivism rates. A short loss of driving followed by a psych eval to regain it seems good to stop misbehavior stemming from a short term situation. However i believe a public caning would change the behavior so that this person can regain their rights and have a chance to become a productive member of society
What about the Trucker in Colorado who got life for killing four people, because his breaks failed? It seems like you're saying that accidental murders should be punished.
"If a victim is sentenced to a lifelong sentence for the crime perpetrated on them, I think the offender should also be sentenced until the victim is no longer living in their sentence. This means any crime that has a lifelong effect on someone, the perp gets a life sentence."
I'm confused by that part.
I think we can both agree though that our justice system is shit
Trucker in Colorado could of taken the escape ramps and ignored them. Drivers with CDLs are held to a much higher standard than regular drivers and are the one exception to where they actually serve time.
Had he taken a ramp, those people would still be alive.
There isn't any accidental killings if people would follow the laws, don't fall asleep while driving, maintain your car as legally required, such as good tires. Don't pull out in front of others unless it is clear, etc... breaking the law is not an accident, it is a choice.
In all three of those cases the people would still be alive had the drivers been following the law.
In the victim sentence part, is the victim should not still be suffering from the crime after the criminal is out and free, moved on and forgotten they ever did it. A criminal should never be let out UNTIL the victim is no longer suffering from the effects of the crime.
This way as long as a victim suffers, the criminal who caused it, stays locked up.
And how exactly would you determine that? Although I understand where you're coming from, I think that would be pretty difficult to implement. And I think people deserve s second chance. I understand why you think these things, but I have to respectfully disagree with you.
I don't think a person deserves to have their entire life ruined for making one mistake. And there are other people who matter than just the victim.
What about the kids who are now growing up without a father, or the wife without a husband? Everyone deserves to have someone who will see the good in them, and show them love. One mistake doesn't make you a bad person or a threat to the general public.
In the Colorado case he did drive by at least one run away truck ramp, that is not in dispute.
As for the rest I respectfully disagree as well, as the only victim that should matter is the victim of the crime. Sure family members are victims but they are also victims of the criminal and that should not be taken into consideration.
I'm all for second chances as soon as the victim is no longer living their sentence.
I'm also not talking about mistakes, rape is not a mistake, murder is not a mistake. Failure to take care of your car is not a mistake, those are all choices. Failure to pull over and sleep is a choice.
Why should the victim have a longer sentence than the actual criminal? What is society going to do to fix that?
Those can be mistakes. There was a famous incident in Norway where a musician killed his fellow band mate. He did his maximum 25 years, even making and selling albums from prison, and was released. One Norwegian guy said that most murders in Norway are personal, so the general public isn't really in any danger, and the offender is very unlikely to reoffend. Especially since they're focus more on rehabilitation and getting them back into normal society. He won't be so stigmatized over there trying to find a job.
I saw one other story from India where a Hindu set his wife on fire, and they allowed him to roam within 2 miles of the prison and teach children, and eventually released him, and the parents didn't care about his crime.
Another guy in Brazil serial killed 30 people and only got 10 years.
And in the UK a nursing student stabbed her boyfriend and the judge let her go, because he said he doesn't want to ruin her life and her chances of getting a job.
The real problem is if justice isn't done, then victims often become criminals and it perpetuates the cycle.
Like if a father cuts off the penis of the rapist who raped his daughter, I totally think he should be given a second chance, he isn't a threat to society at all. He won't be doing that to anyone else and is no threat.
I'm referring to both justice for the victim and to keep everyone safe.
If a victim is okay with them going free, that won't be an issue. You could say the best results might be to ask the victim when they should get out, if the victim is okay with it, let them out.
Otherwise us victims get traumatized soon as the person is let out and have to live in fear the rest of our lives from them. That is not fair to us and is a life sentence for us.
Brazil is nuts though, that serial killer has probably already killed others, he is just better at it and not getting caught. Those parents of the murdered wife in India don't seem like they loved their daughter much to not care.
That's a good point. I know. That's probably why Brazil has such a high crime rate. No, the parents of the children he teached didn't care that their kids were being taught by a wife killer.
My brother fell asleep driving to work n had a head on with one car n landed on the next one. Two were killed n 4 injured while he was only knocked out n cut his ear.
It was two years before he faced court n that time in limbo really destroyed him. He received 3 years jail
That was about 10 years ago n I can assure u he will carry the guilt with him forever.
I understand what ur getting at but an honest mistake doesn’t deserve life in jail.
Never said it should be life in jail, but the fact he got jail to me seems fair, 3 to 5 is fine for taking two lives, more lives means more time though.
People who fall asleep here only get a ticket for failure to maintain control, a 60 dollar fine and no jail time even though they killed people.
As for personal guilt, not my concern that is not part of a legal sentence that is a personal one and has no bearing.
Honest question: what federally run system/program in Murrrrica isn't f*cked?
Obviously there are some, but not the big ones.
With the criminal system, judges are human so there's naturally major inconsistencies across the board with the same/similar offenses. And the way the "justice" system handles things across different racial demographics... yeeeesh... again these are humans, mostly middle aged white males when we're talking about judges, so dafuq would you expect?
Hey life sentence in my country is like 18 years then they could be released before time is up or after for “good behaviour”. They get three square meals a day and get a full education if they choose to go for it. They get treated like royalty so much so people do crimes just to get those things
One of the reasons crime is raging now is due to liberal States Attorney's refusing to uphold the laws, set low bonds putting criminals right back out to do whatever again. Thank you George Soros for buying and paying folks to push your socialist agenda. Keep you fkn nose out of our elections.
I was thinking about this the other day. Some sentencing makes no sense. The Tiger King guy got 21 years for hiring someone to kill that Carrol lady ( she was never killed ) , but two dudes who killed a pregnant woman, got 10 and 7.5 years for actual murder. That makes no sense.
Our laws and judges need to be investigated for their decisions for crimes committed. The punishment should fit the crime. Too many judges are racist and corrupt They should be investigated as soon as a judgement comes down. This doesn't happen enough. Jurors aren't the best judges either. Yes, our laws need to change, but don't hold your breath. Look at the terrorists from Jan. 6th. Some are just getting a slap on the wrist, probation etc. I'd through the book at them!!
Yeap. People using weed, a small amount too, have been sent to life in prison. But rapists are routinely let off or get light sentences, regardless of how horrendous the attacks were or how the victim suffers.
It shocked me when I watched a documentary about a serial rapist and murderer who killed and raped some of his victims. 10 of them total including his own mom. Was given 7 years for each kill in prison.
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It is really messed up. Somebody can embezzle from a pension fund and ruin the future of hundreds of depositors and not do a day behind bars but someone steals a car and does hard time.
No... people who kill others should also be killed, along with anyone who hurts children. Rapists should be castrated, and false allegations of SA should be a felony and at least a mandatory 5 years.
Yes the criminal justice system is not about right and wrong it’s about making money from enslaving men. It is modern day slavery and is protected by the constitution that needs to change.
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