Category: Justice

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Do Unjudge

I recently read a post on www.relevantmagazine.com that caught my eye: “Five bible verses that don’t mean what you think”.

Forgive your enemies?  No, no, no.  It may sound something like, “forgive your enemies”, but what Jesus is really saying is “drop large explosive devices on people who refuse to give you their oil”.

It’s not an uncommon approach.  Okay, I exaggerate the one above, but the website does argue that “do not judge, lest you be judged” doesn’t mean “don’t judge, because then you will be judged”, it means, when you judge others, you’re right, but when other people judge you, they are wrong.  Now do you get it?  Good.

You had to be a member to read the rest.  But let me speculate:  the story about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven?  You might think it means that it’s really hard for someone who loves his possessions to have a genuine sense of spirituality, but what it really means is that you should only love all the possessions that God gave you because he wants you to prosper.

And that verse about the apostles owning “everything in common”?  You might think they had some kind of socialist arrangement going there, but you would be wrong.  We are quite sure that only the hard-working, entrepreneurial apostles got to have everything.

And what about forgiving the sins of the adulterous woman?  Does that mean that we should forgive adultery?  You have to read it in context: not if it’s between a same-sex couple.  She or he still has to pay.

 

 

 

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Theology

Would God say, “I forgive you, but you still have to pay”?

Why do we say it?

Because we’re not up to it, are we?  Then why do we say we forgive, when we still want someone to pay?  Because we claim to be good people, following the example of Jesus, and other moral leaders.   We know we are all sinners and that we can only find salvation through the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.  So we are obliged to forgive others.  So we do so, with our lips.  And then we say,  “but you still have to pay”, because we don’t really mean the part about forgiveness. We’re not that good.  We want you to think we are, but we’re not.  We’re really… no better.

Jesus gave the example of a man who steals your cloak.  What if he steals from you seven times?  What if he steals from you 100 times?  Do I still have to forgive him?  Jesus says yes, absolutely.   He is not sly or ambiguous about it: yes, absolutely.   So we have rewritten this lesson to add, “and then have him arrested and sent to prison”.

It is quite possible that most people do not understand the real historical meaning of prison in Christ’s time.  Today, you receive a sentence of fixed duration for a crime.  When your sentence is over, you are released.

We’re even.

In first century Galilee, under Roman rule, you went to prison if you committed a crime, and stayed there until you made it good.   Your crime was to deprive someone of the benefits of a piece of property, or a person and the only way to be released from this debt was to restore the piece of property or person, or compensate the victim with something they would accept as being of equal value to the loss.   Justice was not about retribution– it was about making it good.  Setting things right.  Restoring what had been lost.

But a victim could forgive.  Forgiveness did not mean, “I am a kind, good person who doesn’t hold a grudge, so while I enjoy the satisfaction of seeing you suffer I will perform the public act of generosity and grace and say that I forgive you”.  No.  It meant, “your debt is paid.  You are free.”

Until you made restitution….   Until you apologized and repented, to the satisfaction of the person you had wronged, you would be held in prison, unless the victim forgave you.  If no one brought you food, you starved.

But if the person you had wronged  said “I forgive you”, it meant something.  It meant you were released from obligation, and, therefore prison.  You owed nothing.

So when Christ told his followers to forgive those who wronged them, he meant, see that they are released from prison.  See that they no longer have to pay.  They are no longer under obligation to you.  Free them.  That is what Christians mean by being free in Christ: Christ has forgiven us for our sins.  We do not still have to pay.

So if you say, “I forgive you, but you still have to pay”, or “you need to get counseling”, or “I don’t think you’re sorry enough”, or “I just want to make sure this never happens to anyone else”,  you are a bald-faced liar, and you are really no better than the person you insist requires your “forgiveness”.   You are a bad Christian.

Possibly, some people will find this wacky.  What a strange idea.  People will simply commit crime after crime with impunity.  I think that probably some people will.  But I think that probably a lot of people would rather be restored to the good faith and trust of the community they live in.  I think a lot of people would realize that a community works because of the desire to heal rather than wound, embrace rather than reject, welcome rather than accuse.

Could I do it myself?  Am I speaking in a general, abstract sense here?  No, I’m not.  I mean it.  And I know others who have done it.  I don’t think it’s as hard as you think it is.  But you won’t get a lot of encouragement from anybody.  As a society, we tend to cheer on the guy who shoots and kills the burglar he caught breaking into his house.

Yeah, that’s pretty hopeless.  And if you are looking for a church, and it’s members, to be exemplars of this model, then it really looks hopeless.  Utterly, completely, totally hopeless.

You’re welcome.

 

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Mattress Wars

Is Emma Sulkowicz the new Oleanna? Or Joan of Mattress? When I first encountered the story, I assumed it was another tale of campus rape, mediated, probably, as usual, by drugs and booze, at a frat party or dorm room somewhere, with the usual cast of characters: young, naive woman out for a good time; young man dragging her off somewhere and forcing himself on her; young girl’s friends warning her, losing her, looking for her; young man’s friends laughing it all off and calling her a slut.

But this story didn’t work out that way. The alleged rape took place in Emma’s room, and was, in it’s initial stages– by her own account– consensual. But, she claims, he took it too far, and forced her into anal sex. But, then again, she didn’t seem to regard it as non-consensual for quite a few days afterwards, as she exchanged friendly Facebook messages with Paul Nungesser, the “perp” in this story. And then again, some of her messages seemed rather specifically expressive: wanna come over and have anal sex?

Emma didn’t file a complaint immediately. In fact, she exchanged friendly Facebook messages with him for sometime after the event. It appears that only after encountering other young women who had relationships with the young man– and the young man’s detachment from her– that she decided that the anal sex had been, after all, non-consensual.

She went to the University and explained her situation. The University, even after refusing to look at the Facebook messages, or to hear from Paul Nungesser, declined to suspend the alleged perpetrator. Emma then went to the police. The DA also declined. I haven’t read a good account of why both the University and the DA didn’t proceed with charges, but it seems likely that Emma was honest enough to admit to exchanging messages with the alleged perpetrator that, at the very least, made it difficult to press the case that the sex was “non-consensual”. I wish we could hear the conversation with the University officials: there must have been something remarkable there for them to decline to punish a student for an alleged rape.

What is remarkable is that Emma Sulkowicz, from her statements and actions, appears to have a different idea of “non-consensual” than even devoted feminists have held up til now. She seems to actually believe that no matter how consensual the act was at the time, bad behavior by the man afterwards can justify a retroactive assessment of the act as rape. This is intriguing to me because I don’t think she is unique in this regard. Some of her comments about Nungesser suggest that her accusation is based more on a judgement of his character than her memory of the incident. Something about her comments sounds familiar and disturbing, in the sense that I wonder just how reliable some allegations made by other women are– which is something one should not wonder.

If there was any doubt about the nature of Emma’s accusations, she has released a video of herself and a male actor recreating the “rape”, from several angles, with considerable authenticity. The sex is not simulated. This is quite possibly the strangest attempt to build credibility I have ever heard of. The experience was so awful that I will recreate it, as artistic expression? You could build a lot of aesthetic theory on the idea but in terms of how this furthers her demands for “justice”, I am mystified.

Is this all drama? All of it? The mattress, the allegations, the protests, the re-enactment? Is the relationship itself another drama, with the University and the District Attorney denying Emma her catharsis?

[whohit]Mattress Wars: Emma Sulkowicz[/whohit]

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Death Juries

It is a peculiarity of the American justice system that the prosecution is allowed to exclude jurors who say they would never vote for the death penalty.  [2022-04-12:  I discovered recently that not all judges agree with this and in some cases have allowed jurors who do not subscribe to murder as a remedy.]

On what basis is this done? We are given to understand that it would be unfair for the prosecution to have to convince someone who didn’t believe in the death penalty to vote for the death penalty? But why is that unfair? A suspect is entitled to a jury of his peers. If, say, 30 or 40% of the general population is opposed to the death penalty, why is that view excluded from the jury?

I am very confident that a simple study would show that death penalty enthusiasts would also be more likely to vote guilty just because they are sure than any person accused of any crime probably committed the crime. So doesn’t this process actually stack the jury?

Well, because then we would never get the death penalty, because there would always be one or two jurors who would not vote for it. And that is wrong because…? Because the people in favor of the death penalty demand the right to prevail! It’s not fair that people who disagree with me get to have even one member of the jury who doesn’t share my desire to kill someone.

Turns out the courts have considered exactly that point. And responded with a somewhat bizarre ruling:

“In Lockhart v. McCree, the results of the empirical research on the effects of death-qualification came before the Supreme Court. The court held that the process of death-qualification does not unconstitutionally bias juries towards a verdict of guilt. Justice Rehnquist criticized the research, but ultimately the Court held that general empirical research could not decide the issue; instead, a defendant would have to demonstrate that his or her own jury was biased.” So proof would consist of being found innocent.

Nicely parried Rehnquist! Scatalogical reasoning worthy of a Scalia, along the lines of: you have to prove that your specific all-white jury was biased against you, not just that the principle of excluding all blacks from juries is unconstitutional. Therefore, you Alabama prosecutors just go right ahead and continue to empanel whites only juries!

If you think that sounds like another 5-4 ruling along partisan political lines, you’re correct. Did anyone, while arguments were presented, ask Clarence Thomas why he was allowed on the Supreme Court? After all, no one would ever be able to show that a perpetually white Supreme Court was ever biased in any particular decision.

The smell around the issue has become a bit more pungent with the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for the Boston Marathon bombing.

The latest poll shows that less than 20% of Massachusetts citizens believe Tsarnaev should be executed. In a country that positively adores punishing people and killing them when given the opportunity to excuse their wish to kill people, that number is astonishing: less than 20% of the population of Massachusetts are barbarians.

So why are they even talking about the death penalty? Because certain government officials in Massachusetts, in the State Attorney’s office, decided that they needed to transfer the case to the Federal Government precisely so that Tsarnaev could be executed, in spite of the fact that Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

And… is that not possible grounds for a future appeal?

If they are going to have the death penalty, it should absolutely be public. If the public can’t stand watching, then vote to abolish it. Nobody should be allowed to support the death penalty and then go cower in a little box in the corner of the basement and pretend not to know that someone, on their behalf, is going to murder someone else, in the coldest blood possible, because this is an execution, not a bar fight. It is pure cold blood. The executioner should never wear a mask: what do you have to be ashamed of? What is it? Why don’t you want us to know that you are willing to kill people, as long as it’s dressed up with symbolism and ceremony and piety.

My position on the death penalty can be simply summed up thusly: the logic of “we think the taking of a human life is so terrible, so shocking, so monstrous, that we will take a human life in retribution” is patently absurd.

“…spoke from his cloak/ so deep and distinguished’ Bob Dylan

 

* * *

Some questions they ask potential jurors:

  • I am strongly in favor of the death penalty, and would have a difficult time voting against it, regardless of the facts of the case. (true or false)
  • I generally favor the death penalty, but I would base a decision to impose it on the facts and the law in the case. (true or false)
  • I am generally opposed to the death penalty, but I believe I can put aside my feelings against the death penalty and impose it if it is called for by the facts and law in the case. (true or false)

The last one is bizarre:  Okay. So I could put away my “feelings” against the death penalty and impose it if “it is called for by the facts and the law in this case”. I thought that the whole point of the abolitionist’s position is that the death penalty is never rightly called for by any facts or law? 

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Crackpot Justice: the FBI Lies

Just what kind of crackpot justice system is this?

It is now reported in the Washington Post that the celebrated FBI laboratory has acknowledged– not “discovered”– acknowledged– that the evidence it has given in respect of matching hairs– usually those found on the victim to those of the suspect– was not based on real science.

Not only will many court cases (at least 268) have to be reviewed carefully, but a lot of Hollywood movies and TV Dramas might want to revisit their plot points.

What is striking is that the faulty evidence given by the FBI almost always favored the prosecution– up to 95%, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Innocence Project.

Thirty-two of the defendants had been sentenced to death.

Can’t wait to see that dramatized in the TV series.

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Vampires of the Health Care System

The New York Times reports on a woman named Kim Little who had a tiny thread-like spot on her cheek and asked her doctor to check it out. The doctor thought it was harmless but an assistant at her dermatologist’s office thought it might be cancerous. She had a biopsy done: it was indeed cancerous, but it was the kind of cancer that is easily, routinely treated, with complete success. Except that she fell into the hands of the AMERICAN MEDICAL SYSTEM, which seizes those with insurance or money or assets with powerful stainless-steel talons and bleeds them drier than Dick Cheney’s heart.

She went in for treatment. The spot was removed! Success! Except that it wasn’t. All that was required was the removal of the spot and a few stitches. Local anesthesia. And then her grandmother could have stitched her up. Ms. Little told her doctor that she was not concerned about a scar. Tough luck. The doctor who removed the spot refused to do the stitches and sent her over to a specialist in a different building in the same complex. The specialist ordered nurses to prepare the patient to be bled dry: she was undressed and put in a bed and given an IV bag, which undoubtedly cost $600 or so. An anesthesiologist put her under, for $1,000. The plastic surgeon robbed her of $14,000 but left a scar anyway. The hospital fanged her for $8,774.

Now, a vet could very well have performed the entire procedure almost as well– if not better– for a hundred bucks or so. Wait a minute– that’s silly. Really, it should have cost about $50, given the effort and skill required. All right– $75. We’re talking about two or three stitches here on a patient who made it clear she was not concerned about a possible scar.

You’re thinking: you would trust a vet with cancer? On a human being?

I’m thinking: you would trust the three or more medical personnel who charged her thousands of dollars for a medically simple procedure that should not have required more than ten minutes to perform?

Yes, I would trust the vet. Maybe not with liver cancer, or a brain tumor, but with this spot? Yes, I would. Just as I would trust the cancer drugs that cost about 1% of the cost to humans when used on an animal. Same drug.

But dogs don’t carry health insurance.  Maybe that is why treating a dog’s illness is so much more economical than treating a human’s illness.  (On the other hand, the vets seem to be catching on.)

It is interesting that a perfectly competent individual with appropriate training and equipment could easily have performed this procedure just as well as the doctor did. It is in the nature of the American health care system, however, that nobody is going to start a business that performs this service cheaper than hospitals. Nobody is going to be allowed to train in the specific skills needed without also having to be sucked into an entire program of training which has the desired collateral result: complete absorption into this profit-generating system. Even a nurse or doctor who trained in the existing system could never get away with opening a practice that advertises low, low prices.

Why not? What would happen? He or she would not have any customers. The customers come from Health Care Plans, Groups, Employers, Government. They start out with connections to labs and clinics, all of whom refer to each other, and none of whom will refer a patient to a cheap, alternative clinic, if there were any. Ms. Little was undoubtedly presented with numerous forms which entrust the key monetary aspects of her treatment to a blind and unfeeling bureaucracy which then proceeds to bleed her dry and expunge any trace of real accountability from the system.

If she sued, or refused to pay, the system would turn her over to a collection agency, which is empowered by legislation to annihilate her credit rating, her assets, and, ultimately, her freedom.

Addendum

How is this story different from a story about a man who takes a gun and walks into a corner store and demands money?

The difference is that you don’t have any money to give the robber, he can’t turn you over to a collection agency to get it.

The difference is that institutional medicine in the United States has developed very sophisticated and culturally rich methods of kicking you in the teeth with documents and forms instead of a gun or a crowbar. The attitude is exactly the same. The greed is the same. The ruthlessness is the same.

Well– wait a minute. I don’t think it is. I think a robber with a gun might actually care if you die during the robbery because he would receive a stiffer sentence if caught.

The doctor and the hospital do not care. They will get paid regardless.

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Rohypnol

I am a bit surprised the poll did not ask students if they had ever had a drink spiked with the date-rape drug, Rohypnol (also known as flunitrazepam). If you are interested in facts, a study in the UK examined 120 claimed cases of use of “date-rape” drugs: not a single instance survived scrutiny.

I repeat: not one survived scrutiny.

The San Diego Medical Examiner’s office also looked into the issue– again, using real science– and found some evidence of possible flunitrazepam in about 1% of the alleged incidents. (Keep in mind that Rohypnol is sometimes– often– used intentionally, recreationally by people.)

Obviously, the investigators never watched Oprah or 20/20, or any of the other numerous programs on their mission of frightening the uninformed.

The University of Illinois, incidentally, casually asserts that date rape drugs are being used “at an increasing rate”. Really? And how do they know this? What previous studies are they comparing current studies to? What was the rate ten years ago, or fifteen years ago? They further assert that it is “often” brought back from Europe (where it can be prescribed as a sleep aid) by students.

I think I know where they got these conclusions from. They asked people their impressions. Do you think the use of date-rape drugs is going up or down? What do you think? Give us your honest opinion.

Do a search on the question of “does Rohypnol leave any traces” and you will find that a lot of websites use exactly the same text to say it does not. Look for the phrase:  “is colorless, odorless, and tasteless and dissolves without leaving any traces”.  They are all republishing information from same misinformed source.

It is not truthful. First of all, since about 10 years ago, the manufacturer, Roche, has made the tablets “less dispersible”. It doesn’t dissolve cleanly quickly, and colors the liquid in which it is mixed.

More importantly, Rohypnol can be detected in the urine of a person who ingested it for up to 60 hours afterwards. In the situation in which a woman suspects she has been secretly drugged and raped, she has at least two days to report it and have her urine tested for the unlikely possibility she really has been drugged.

But then, Rohypnol is supposed to cause amnesia: the victim is supposed to lose her memory of the assault, and even time before the assault. Then how would she know? That’s problematic, especially since alcohol has a similar effect. And that’s why when you do see cases of suspicion of the date-rape drug, victims report that they were bruised or sore in the groin area, and that’s what made them suspicious. They understand the problem: how did they know?

Even more problematic: many of the alleged symptoms of the drug are very, very similar to symptoms of excessive alcohol consumption. Would there be a temptation for a woman in this situation to under-state the amount of alcohol she has consumed?

Have you ever understated the amount of alcohol you have consumed?

The disturbing part of this– something which should be very disturbing to women who are genuinely concerned about sexual assault– is the number of women who have claimed to have been drugged and then raped. A charge of rape can often boil down to he said/she said arguments, and feminists urge us to always believe the woman, but if a woman is tested within 60 hours, it is possible to prove, scientifically, whether or not she was drugged. But if it can be proven that most of the claims of having been drugged and raped are false– at least, insofar as the drug part goes– a rational person might consider whether there’s something going on here that needs to be acknowledged by the legal system, by society, and by feminists.

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Sentencing Children

Once upon a time, children who committed serious crimes were treated like adults and sent to prisons and hanged and flogged, like adults.

Then we became civilized. We realized that it was horribly unjust to treat, say, a 12-year-old, the same way we treat a 25-year-old, and to hold them to the same standards of behavior and responsibility.

We realized, for one thing, that children are not complete human beings yet. Their brains are not fully developed. They are undergoing big changes. They are not “responsible” in the same way a mature adult is responsible. So they need to be treated differently. They still have a chance to become a normal, well-functioning, rational adult human being.

And then we completely forgot about all those things because we are ourselves evil beings and we want to see people suffer, given the opportunity, so now we routinely charge adolescents “as adults” so we can maximize the severity of their punishments.

There are days, by golly, when our society looks like we have already embraced Sharia law. Gather the stones!

 

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Remorse

“It was weird that I didn’t feel remorse,” NY Times, 2014-06-08, from a story about two 12-year-old girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, who lured a third girl into a woods and stabbed her19 times.

I’ve heard this before and I always wonder why, if you didn’t feel remorse, you would think it was “weird” that you didn’t feel remorse. There’s a whole world of morality and philosophy and culture hiding in that little phrase. Does anybody really feel remorse or does anybody else just not think it’s weird?

Of course, we all act as if remorse is what you feel after you do something wrong. We act as if everyone knows what is wrong and what is right, and we respond to regrettable events appropriately, the way everyone would.

The girl who made the statement above believed it. Well, she says something like that. If you take everything people say at face value, you would have to say that she meant it– she thought she would feel remorse. She was prepared for it, but still committed to the task at hand– proving to “Slender Man” that she was evil enough to earn his trust.

She could have said to her victim, it’s nothing personal.

It is quite possible that most people don’t feel remorse. We all pay lip service to values like kindness and compassion but, as when we charge adolescents as adults in order to maximize the amount of suffering we can inflict upon them, we don’t seem so different.

The judge will sentence these girls to long, long terms in federal penitentiaries. And then she might just say to herself, “it was weird that I didn’t feel remorse”.

Oh but wait– the judge is an adult. She will have learned long ago to say– regardless of what she really feels– how sorry she is to have to punish these girls like this.

 

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The Appropriate Sentence for a Crime

Almost everybody loves to whine about criminals getting off easy. That’s all he got? Four years? Five years? Twenty years? It’s not enough. They should lock him up for life. No wonder there’s so much crime!

I don’t know of any divine tablet or sacred spreadsheet that tells us what a “light” sentence is or what is a sufficient punishment for, say, a burglary, or an assault, or a rape. People routinely act as if they know but they usually only say it should be more than what it was. Always more. If you asked someone out of the blue how many years in prison a man should serve for, say, rape, I doubt that most people have a clue as to how to arrive at a particular number.

How long should a man serve for conning people out of money? 144 years?

The most useful measure, in my opinion, is the relative seriousness of a crime. And the “seriousness” of a crime should be measured in harm.  And what is a harm?  If you have deprived someone of a material good, or health, life, or limb. There, we are on firmer ground, though not in the clear.

What types of crime are there?

There should never be any punishment for thought crimes. You would think that would be obvious– I would have thought it would be obvious– but in the so-called war on terror, the U.S. is now locking up young men for talking about jihad even if they cannot be shown to have taken a single actual step towards committing an act of terrorism. Talking about a crime is not really a crime unless you proceed to commit the crime. Talking about using drugs without using drugs is not illegal. Talking about having sex without having sex is not illegal. But talking about jihad without doing any jihad will get you 20 years, especially if an enthusiastic FBI informant offers to supply you with guns and bombs.

There are “victimless” crimes like possession of drugs for personal use, prostitution, possession of pornography (which, under the Canadian criminal code, used to include depictions of homosexual acts). When people try to justify prosecution for these crimes they frequently give, as reasons, consequences that are already illegal under other laws: driving while drunk, assault, exploitation of minors. But if a man (or a woman) uses threats of physical violence to force another person into acts of prostitution, I believe he or she should be prosecuted for a) exploitation (taking the money earned by someone else’s forced labour) or b) assault. But if two independent adults agree to have sex with each other in exchange for money, the government should stay out of it.

Drugs are more complicated: prescription drugs should be regulated to ensure quality and accuracy of dosages.   Alcohol should be regulated to prevent minors from having access but what if someone brews their own?  I think it is possible to prohibit giving alcohol to minors but if a person wants to consume home-brewed liquors in his own home, the government should stay out of it.  And the government has no business telling anyone they can’t grow a particular plant and then stick its leaves in their mouths and set them on fire. As long as they don’t get behind the wheel of a car after doing so.

But then, why should the tobacco industry be regulated?  You see– it does get complicated.  There is a difference: the shareholders and managers of tobacco companies profit by deceiving customers into believing their product is harmless (and, at one time, glamorous).  That invites legitimate government regulation.  Could we have a world where commercial sales of tobacco is banned entirely but if someone wants to grow some in his backyard and smoke it that is entirely up to the individual?

Should motorcycle owners be required to wear helmets?  And if they don’t, would society be okay with denying medical care to a motorcyclist who chose not to wear a helmet and got into an accident that caused a head injury?  Ayn Rand might say, sure.  Our society would find that hard to stomach.  In the end, the most rational choice may be to require helmets.

There are property crimes. I think there should be a big difference between the punishment for property crimes and the punishment for crimes of violence. And I think the punishment for property crimes should be focused on restitution, not on revenge.

Crimes of violence should be taken very seriously, and repeat offenders should receive escalating sentences. This is one area where I have some sympathy for victims’ rights organizations– with limitations. Quite often, we hear mythical tales of someone who committed numerous violent acts and kept getting released after light sentences. In many instances, the story is more complicated than that: our judges are not stupid.

Capital Punishment is absurd: if we really believe that life is sacred and the taking of a life is a horrible offense, the last message we want to send to society is that we will do it too. Besides, as DNA testing has shown, we are all too frequently wrong in determining who committed the crime and a capital sentence cannot be reversed.

Unfortunately, what has happened in the U.S. is a ratcheting up of criminal sentencing. And the word “ratcheting” is exactly what I mean. A ratchet, if you don’t know, is a box wrench on a handle that can be switched to allow the user to quickly turn the handle back and forth while applying force in one direction only. In the U.S., over the last forty years, there has been constant political pressure to lengthen sentences without the slightest movement backwards. It has become politically impossible–thanks to the “tough on crime” wing of the Republican party– to advocate for lighter sentences for anything (though there are signs the U.S. is coming to their senses on the issue). As a result, sentences for some crimes in the U.S. have moved beyond severe to ridiculous and then to the sadistic and finally absurd. Yes, there are people in federal prisons in the U.S. serving 20-25 years for possession of marijuana. If you’re a rational person, you probably don’t believe me.

The benchmark sentence for violent crime should be 25 years for murder and there should be a chance of parole after 15 years. Hey, I can be specific. And you can quibble all you like about the exact number, but I believe that 25 is a rational, reasonable guess as to how much is appropriate and constructive. I believe that even a murderer should have some hope of being released some day if only to provide him with an incentive to change his life while in prison. Prison guards will tell you that it is not helpful for a prisoner to know that he will never be released no matter what his behavior is like, in prison.  He or she has nothing to lose.

Scale that down to three months for a basic assault that does not include sufficient violence to inflict permanent injury to the victim for a person who is not a repeat offender. It seems rational to me to give suspended sentences to first-time offenders in this category, particularly if they take steps to turn their lives around, especially making personal, public apologies and restitution.

The rest I will leave alone– it would take years of work and analysis and practice to develop a useful, sensible scale of appropriate punishments for violent crimes that fall in between murder and assault. Hey, we have that: it’s called the criminal justice system. It needs to be fixed, within parameters like the ones I suggest above, but it’s possible, because we do still have the miracle of rule by law.

And we must stop adjusting criminal sentences by blandly pleading for “more”.