Is it really hard to make a decision on sentencing in nonviolent crimes that you wouldn't personally lock someone in a box for?
If they're not a danger to society, they do not belong in a box.
If they're not a danger to society, they do not belong in a box.
If you or I got even 6 months in jail for stealing a wallet, I am pretty sure it would feel like "a long time."
This business of decades or life imprisonment for property crimes is draconian, we have just collectively lost perspective.
IMHO.
I'd also hope that after your "long time of 6 months in jail for stealing a wallet" you'd realize that it was a poor choice and not do it again. Certainly after the 2nd time you were convicted and sent to jail it should sink in right? If 3 times isn't enough, where do we draw the line?
This phrase is repeated often in this thread, "draw the line," but some people will not conform, some people will commit petty criminal acts, for a lifetime. IMHO that is no justification for locking them up indefinitely.
Think of marijuana legislation, one minute you can be locked up for life, the next minute it is legal. No matter what the crime, there is an element of subjectivity, fashion, culture, in what punishments we apply. Yes, some people may not rehabilitate. But that fact alone doesn't justify life in prison. Or even a severe sentence.
Compassion is real. It is important, even when it is inconvenient, even for people who suck.
At least, that's how I see it.
After, say, 100 wallets stolen how do you prevent the next 900 victims from suffering? The victims have absolute rights for protection and compassion; but a repeat offender has intentionally chosen to throw away whatever ties with society he had. There's a social contract about things we do and don't do to each other; we generally don't take others stuff, don't hurt each others and we show compassion to others in our society - so if you repeatedly choose to break the social contract, by taking others stuff and not showing compassion; then why should others show compassion and refrain from hurting you?
If someone can go to my house and take my stuff, why should I be forcibly prevented by police from going to his house and taking his stuff?
If someone is an unquestionably repeat offender, then preventing future crimes is a mandatory goal; respecting the offender is important but, if we can't do otherwise, it's optional. If there is a more humane way to solve it than permanent isolation from society (life sentence, permanent mental institution, execution or exile), then I'd like to hear that and would greatly support it.
What I haven't seen yet is a comparison of cash, not to the cost of imprisonment, but to the cost of getting a job. That is, if someone is in prison for 200 days, that costs a few tens of thousands of dollars to the US taxpayer, so the arguments being advanced in these threads say "this should be a response only to someone who is stealing $10,000 from us, otherwise the government is taking much more from us in taxes than the guy was taking from us in crime." That makes some amount of sense. It ignores certain problems (like "who do the taxes come from?" and psychological damage from getting mugged and so on), but it does have some core "thrust" to it.
On the other hand, to be an effective deterrent to crime, you'd figure that we'd want to make the crime net-unprofitable; that is, you'd want the 9-to-5 job at $7/hour to be a more profitable way of living than stealing $100 wallets. So this would suggest that for an expected number of 100 wallets stolen you should really incarcerate for, say, 2 years or so, so that the original crime "really doesn't pay", in the sense that you lose job-access for a total sum of more money than you gained. (That punishment might also have to be increased if the chance of catching someone who steals 100 wallets is not 100%.)
You work for a month? You get a month's rent and food. You're in prison for a month? You get a worse bed but a bit better food - the lack of freedom sucks bigtime, but financially there's no difference.
Think about a routine drug user (say, heroin addict) who regularly (daily/weekly) performs theft to sustain the habit - car radios, shoplifting, maybe an apartment if he gets a chance. It is a very common scenario in many places, if the user can't quit (or always restarts a few months after therapy/quitting) and the needed drugs are all illegal & expensive; as the only real non-crime [here] alternative they have is prostitution and many of them consider theft as the more pleasant option.
Even a small, friendly village community who know everyone and help each other would likely vote [for laws] to imprison him in order to stop the behavior. Rehabilitation is another option, but the idea is that after 3-strikes you have to admit that your rehabilitation (however good or bad it is) doesn't work and you have to do something else.
Or think of a genuine kleptomaniac. Unless it's successfully treated, you still need to take some measures to prevent repeated crimes.