The Focus of our Criminal System

Recently a Vermont judge made national news by sentencing a confessed child rapist to 60 days in jail. The citizens of Vermont and ultimately the nation were outraged at such a light penalty.
The judge, at the sentencing, justified his decision by saying that penalty wouldn’t correct the problem. Therapy was needed, but there was none available through the state penal system. Perhaps he was right in that sense, but just letting the guy off is even worse. Such a short sentence mocks the victim, the victim’s family, the community and our legal system.

Penalties may be somewhat beneficial in deterring crime - at least some crime by some criminals. Our legislators are continually increasing penalties for various crimes, but the crime rate isn’t going down. Yes, it seems to go down a little here and there, but not much. It also seems that it goes down not so much because of the penalty, but because repeat offenders are getting jailed longer.

I have spoken with many people involved with the criminal justice system. I’ve talked with, lawyers, police, prison chaplains and even people convicted of crimes. I’ve read numerous articles and seen television reports concerning crime, criminals and the criminal justice system. Piecing all that information together makes me think our criminal justice system could function vastly better if it had a different focus.
Our current system is pointed toward the idea that criminals must be punished. That sounds right, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Suppose instead that our system was directed at the idea that criminals must be rehabilitated. That doesn’t sound so right, but I'd like to examine the idea a little more.

One thing I have heard from my different sources is that the great bulk of crime in our nation is committed by a relatively small number of people. I had a local policeman tell me that if he could lock up one hundred people, the crime rate in our community of a hundred and twenty thousand would be reduced by more than half. Of course he was speculating, but his point was well made.

If a man gets caught holding up a convenience store, he could, under most legal systems, get a jail sentence of perhaps five years. He may, depending on a variety of circumstances, spend only a few weeks of that sentence actually in jail. He’ll eventually get released, but now he’s made new friends in jail – people with similar interests and experiences. He will have learned about the police, the court system and the world that criminals are given to live in. Such a system has great potential to make him a much better criminal and far less potential to make him a better citizen. So the question comes up, ‘Which is better to have walking our streets – good citizens or good criminals?’ Our newly improved criminal may continue to commit crimes, but be harder to catch and harder to convict when he is caught. He may, with some likelihood, fall into a ‘catch and release’ cycle that is functionally unlimited.

Suppose that instead of jailing the guy for robbery, he was sent to a rehabilitation center for a prescribed minimum time. At the center, there would be a serious effort made to rehabilitate him. He would be taught how to be a better, more productive citizen – even learning a trade if he had no useful skills. Such teaching would be quite unlike the public school system and would involve real reward and real punishment to facilitate learning. At the end of his training, he could be released to function as a good citizen without distinction or limitation except for a probationary period and one other thing. He would now have an arrest record with a boundary. If he commits a crime again, his training period might be longer and more intense before he is released. If he commits another crime after all that, he could be arrested, tried and if convicted a third time, his boundary would have been exceeded and he would be labeled unrehabilitatable. The unrehabilitatable would be removed from participation in society - possibly retained for life in an uncomplicated, efficient, humane but secure prison with no further efforts toward rehabilitation. The individual would be simply not be allowed to participate in society. I know this may sound cruel and excessive to some, but it does provide motivation to be a good citizen which the current system doesn't do very well.

The boundary could be set appropriately for various crimes and combinations of crimes. Under some situations it might be perfectly reasonable for the boundary to be set at one. Other situations might have some higher number. For example, a preditory murderer may have a boundary of one while a simple thief might have a boundary of three. That thief may have his boundary reduced by committing another crime.

The difference between the system I’ve just described and our current system is focus - penalty versus rehabilitation. True, a part of our current penal system is directed toward rehabilitation, but its real goal is punishment - speak to anyone who has gone through the system and you will get that idea described very clearly. I believe that if a criminal were given the opportunity to participate in a real program designed to specifically improve his life he would take it. I believe that continuing a life of crime and failing to live as a productive citizen after having been given such an opportunity should result in loss of freedom and the loss of the privilege to live a life among people who do live as responsible citizens. Such an individual should be confined as cheaply and simply as humanely allowable.

I believe a system focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment would dramatically lower crime rates in our communities. However, I have no information beyond the reasoning presented here that would indicate such a system would actually work. Therefore, I propose that pilot programs to study the effectiveness of such a system be undertaken.