ELCT Year 4/ 2020 Research Paper

““The punishment should always fit the crime”. To what extent do you
agree?”
 Criminal justice systems seek to punish criminals so as to upkeep justice. For

so long, we have put faith into them to do just this. However, in light of recent

developments, it has never been clearer that this system is flawed. With the #MeToo

movement shedding light on sexual offenders getting lenient sentences and the “war

on drugs” campaign over-punishing narcotic criminals, there seems to be a growing

question over whether the punishment should always fit the crime. The deterrence

theory- which suggests that the threat of harsh punishment will deter people from

committing crime, supports doling disproportionately severe sentences. However,

others would argue that such a policy is ineffective as most criminals are not

mentally sound and would not consider these consequences- making the policy

ineffective. I agree that punishment should fit the crime as disproportionately harsh

sentencing is counterproductive for public safety and worsens the economy.

I agree with this statement as prison is counter-productive for public safety.

Prison is the most common punishment- as is obvious from the 165% increase in

punishment rate and the concurrent 149% increase in imprisonment rate between

1983 and 2013 in the USA. Some argue that prison sentences promote public safety

as it deprives society of more dangerous people. However, this policy is flawed in its

perception of a “dangerous person”. A study found that about 39% of the nationwide

prison population (576,000 people) is behind bars with little public safety rationale in

the USA (Eisen and Chettiar).The majority of people in prison are nonviolent

offenders like vandals and petty thieves. By jailing them, it is obvious that prison is

used more for retribution than public safety. In fact, it is counterproductive for public

safety. Statistics have revealed that prisoners who are given harsher sentences tend
to recidivate more than those given lighter sentencing. Offenders who spent an

average of 30 months in prison had a recidivism rate of 29%, compared to a 26%

rate among prisoners serving an average sentence of 12.9 months (Wright). Sending

people who never posed a threat to public safety to prison is counterproductive as it

makes them more likely to threaten public safety. This tendency for prisoners to

recidivate after spending longer time in prison is because the longer one spends in

prison, the more they identify with the label of a criminal and get influenced by their

peers in jail. This could inspire them to commit more crimes. Thus, an alternative

would be community-based punishments for non-threatening offenders. For violent

offenders who actually pose a threat to public safety, prison is the best option as it

prevents them from hurting the public. However, for those without violent intent,

punishments that minimise the risk of them becoming more serious re-offenders

such as mandatory hours of community service, rehabilitation centres, probation and

house arrest could decrease crime rate for the long-term since most crimes are petty

crimes and do not undermine public safety. Hence, because having punishments not

fit the severity of a crime in the name of public safety is counterproductive,

punishments should always fit the crime.

Longer prison sentences also hurt the economy seeing as the “tough on

crime” policy has pushed many families into poverty. Harsh sentencing is often

attributed to mandatory minimum sentencing- especially in drug-related crimes.

Because of them, people are frequently given heftier prison sentences for any

narcotic crime despite being minor offenders with no previous record. This often

wreaks financial havoc on innocent families. Studies have found that the probability
of a family being in poverty increases by almost 40 percent when a father is

imprisoned (Gertner and Bains). Another survey has found that for over one third of

the families it surveyed, it was prison-related fees that pushed them below the

poverty line. Minimum sentencing has resulted in many first-time and low-risk

offenders’ families entering poverty. Many judges, even, have voiced out about how

unforgiving minimum sentencing is- an issue that is further exacerbated by the

financial crisis it causes for low-income families. Disproportionately harsh sentencing

also requires a much higher budget- which is tough to maintain. With more low-risk

criminals getting longer sentences, the need for more prisons to accommodate the

growing number of prisoners also increases. The struggle to keep up with the

growing population of prisoners financially is evident in the USA. Despite only having

the 50th highest crime rate as of 2020, the USA has the highest number of prisoners

per 100,000 in the world as of June 2020 at 655. Seeing as the root problem of high

prison budgets and families of convicts entering poverty is the doling out of

disproportionately harsh sentencing, I believe that the punishment should always fit

the crime.

On the other hand, some would argue in favour of disproportionately harsh

sentencing as it serves as a form of deterrence. If a potential offender knows the

consequences for their crime are dire, they would be less-inclined to commit the

crime. This is especially the case for petty crimes such as shoplifting. Since the

penalty for shoplifting is too minor to outweigh the benefit the criminal gets from

shoplifting, more people shoplift. However, if the penalty for shoplifting outweighed

the benefit for the criminal, the criminal will be dissuaded from shoplifting. An
example of the deterrence theory in practice would be the sharp decline in crime in

the United States that started in the 1990s. This sharp decline came right after

Ronald Reagen implemented “tough on crime” and “war on drugs” in American

policy- which shows deterrence is effective.

However, this argument assumes that every potential offender engages in

rational choice theory- meaning that they weigh the consequences of getting caught

and the chance they commit the crimes. However this is not true for most criminals

considering that as of 2015, 55 percent of male inmates in state prisons were

mentally ill while 73 percent of female inmates were. Mental illness and substance

abuse often addle the brain too much for criminals to think rationally and be logically

deterred from a crime for fear of punishment. Furthermore, most criminals come from

poor socio-economic backgrounds and are driven by their desperation to commit

crime. As professor Richard Wright said, “It is not so much that these actors

consciously choose to commit crimes as that they elect to get involved in situations

that drive them toward lawbreaking”. In those situations, lawbreaking is the most

beneficial option- resulting in them engaging in it. As such, the deterrence theory is

ineffective in such scenarios. Since the deterrence theory only applies to a select

group of people, most of whom would not have any incentive to commit crime, it is

unfair to justify disproportionate sentencing with it.

In conclusion, disproportionately harsh punishments are highly unethical as it

is ineffective in the goals they seek to achieve. Harsher sentences, unlike what we

have been taught to believe, undermines public safety more than it protects it. Its
effect on the economy is also noticeably negative and easily avoidable. The

deterrence theory fails to consider the psyche of a criminal and, as such, does not

justify increasing the severity of punishment. As a result, I believe that the

punishment should always fit the crime.

(Word count: 1199)

 Works cited:

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