One thing I can’t help but notice whenever MSNBC’s Lockup comes on is that the U.S. has a lot of morally horrific laws. Plenty of inmates are absolutely nuts and need to be in prison for a long time, but there are also so many who don’t deserve the sentences they get. The U.S. is doing itself a disservice by locking up people for insanely long times, especially when the crimes are non-violent or even victimless. Of course, if our citizens were as white as our institutions, we probably wouldn’t be trying to show the world we can be less forgiving than China.
And the reprehensible laws don’t end there. We have people who get in trouble because some overzealous, moron prosecutors internalize rules. Take the case from last year where teens who were of the age of consent sent nude pictures of themselves to each other over their phones. They got community service for distributing child pornography. That helps no one. No one.
And of course then there’s that whole “Murder is wrong…unless governments do it!” law. I mean, the death penalty. It’s the height of hypocrisy, devalues human life, and is virtually only supported by nations with backwards laws – and I most certainly include the U.S. in that grouping.
With all these irrational laws and punishments, I find it so refreshing when I hear about organizations that fight to help convicts. The most visible groups are the ones that try to stop state-sanctioned murder, but there are also ones like Stanford’s Three Strikes Project that fight against those awful three strike laws present in 26 states.
Students at Stanford Law School’s novel Three Strikes Project, which has successfully overturned 14 life prison terms handed down for non-violent crimes under California’s unforgiving sentencing law, are joined by an unusual coalition in their latest bid. The county judge and prosecutor who sent Shane Taylor behind bars for 25-years-to-life in 1996 now want to help set him free.
His public defender at trial is also supporting Taylor’s plea for a reduced sentence by conceding he failed to mount an adequate defense.
Taylor’s offenses: two burglary convictions when he was 19, and a third conviction for possessing about $10 worth of methamphetamine.
Any reasonable person can see that it makes no sense to send a 19 year old to prison until he’s 44 because he did three stupid things. And this is the typical of these sort of laws. We routinely send young people to prison, removing virtually all discretion from the hands of judges, and to what end? We aren’t educating them. We aren’t removing them from negative environments. All we’re doing is placing them with criminals who are going to teach them how to make a living being criminals.
But maybe Taylor’s crimes do deserve a lot of prison time, regardless of the law, right?
The judge, Howard Broadman, became haunted by memories of the case, believing he had rendered a bad decision in invoking the harsh law. He regretted that in calculating the prison sentence he hadn’t ignored one or both of Taylor’s previous felony convictions: Attempted burglary and burglary that netted a homeless and methamphetamine-addicted Taylor a pizza paid for with a forged check.
And some of the other people in prison under this horrible law?
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says 8,570 third strikers were in prison as of December 2009. Slightly less than half were sentenced for “crimes against property,” drugs and other offenses, including 55 drunken driving convictions.
No one wants to go easy on drunk drivers, but 25 years? Come on.
There’s no rationality behind these sort of laws. They are motivated by nothing more than emotional and a desire for revenge. And they need to go.
Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: California, Howard Broadman, Prison, Three Strikes Project |
For the Sake of Science 
Punishment is supposed to be punishing. We can’t increase sentences after the crime is committed so every single person in prison or jail knew what they were getting into when they did ________.
Its all well and good to say that some people are too nutty and they need to be locked up for ever but how do you evenly sort out the ones that are not?
The case you mention regarding 3 strikes, he knew if he committed another criminal act he would fall under three strikes and get a long sentence. After the first burglary he knew what the cost was and it wasn’t high enough, he was willing to pay it again. Than he goes and decides he wants to get some meth. A slow learner perhaps.
Cost-benefit analysis, if the cost is low enough than the potential benefits outweigh the risk of getting caught and having to pay the price.
Unbelievable. Every time I see someone pull the tired argument that “it is not better than when government kills,” two things come to mind.
1. Go tell blacks that “government killing is wrong” and therefore we should never have fought the Civil War and freed them (admit it, with your “governments kill” line, you just invalidated war as well as the death penalty;
2. Mr. Hawkins, you should go make yourself a “Save the Serial Killers” t-shirt and wear it.
Because for you to tell the victims of, for example, Ted Bundy, Osama bin Laden and Jack the Ripper that they should get over it and “don’t seek revenge,” you are showing how misguided your disgusting priorities are. Bundy, bin Laden and Jack the Ripper knew what they did was wrong. They do not need to be medicated or sent to “Serial Killers Anonymous,” if only for the same reason we do not allow shoplifters off on the charge of having kleptomania. They know that what they are doing is wrong. Ted Bundy did not have “Rape and Kill Little Kids Syndrome” requiring whatever treatment you think would cure him of his “illness.” Period.
Little word of advice: Start caring about people who matter to society. Ted Bundy, bin Laden and Jack the Ripper were worth less than nothing to us. Start caring about the victims for once. Stop trying to “save the serial killers.”
Oh, and one last thing: Drunk Drivers kill 17,000 people a year on our roads. So yes, we need to start being tougher on them. Come on down to the worst state in the country for drunk driving (New Mexico) and see for yourself — people die all the time out here.
The only “horrible sentence” for drunk drivers is when so many of them whine and cry to the judge that they are alcoholics and the judges let them off. That’s even if they get tried — about 50% of drunk driving arrests in NM do not make it to court because there are so many arrests and the cops never show up. So drunk driving is treated about the same as shoplifting, and look at the consequences. I can’t believe someone who is supposedly a rational freethinker won’t stop to think about the consequences of so many people to drink and then get behind a 2000 pound bullet.
I wonder what M.A.D.D. would say if they read up on your post whining about drunk drivers getting long sentences. Because maybe, just maybe, it is a little hard to drink and drive behind a prison cell.
1) I said murder, not killing. Murdering a person for doing something wrong is not necessarily the same thing as killing people during a war. (Please note the word “necessarily”. It is vital to the sentence; please don’t create another strawman due to post skimming and/or poor reading.)
2) Good one. I guess.
I never told anyone to get over anything. I think this relates to the unbelievably massive intellectual problem people have between descriptive and normative statements. I said people are emotional and seeking revenge. That is a description of human nature, not a value statement.
As far as drunk drivers are concerned, their offense does not deserve 25 years, even with two other felonies. You’re being emotional and unreasonable.
The point shouldn’t be to punish. That is an evil end that makes us no better than those we condemn. We would never put a child in time-out for the sake of punishment; the action has a more important point in terms of correcting behavior. That ought to be the mindset we have towards our broken prison system (which, incidentally, other countries have called inhumane, refusing to grant our extradition requests).
To this case specifically, it’s absolutely impossible to call a 19 year old with a drug problem a career criminal. The reason for the law is not being met by incarcerating Taylor.
Punishment I the only thing we can uniformly do. We cannot ‘rehabilitate’ people unifomly. It may work on a few but, all things considered, rehabilitation is a failure.
Its debatable whether jail is even punishing. They have cable tv, running water, 3 meals a day, medical care, and a place to sleep. Indeed they live better today than many poor people.
How exactly do you suggest we correct behavior? Tell them they did a very naughty thing and don’t you ever drive drunk ever again? Send them to an ‘alcohol education’ class they will sleep through?
I still say the cost of breaking the law has got to be high enough to be a deterrent.
Saying punishment is ‘an evil’ is a terrible statement of opinion.
I did not say punishment was an evil. I said punishment as an end is an evil. It’s revenge gussied up.
We need to look to other nations to see how to better rehabilitate our prisoners. We have one of the worst prison systems in the world; to me that says we need a drastic overall. One first step might be more perks. If you bore people for 20-23 hours a day, they aren’t going to use their free time constructively.
I almost made a point about this desire people have to make the lives of prisoners even worse. I appreciate the emotion behind the desire, but the fact is we have not, do not, and will not see positive results. Besides that, every important study in psychology has shown that positive reinforcement is what yields positive results. If we kick our dogs, we have to expect them to bite us: it is our fault. But if we give them biscuits for good behavior, we can start congratulating ourselves when we – inevitably – see more good behavior.
(I would normally prefer not to refer to people as dogs, but since that’s how the United States has decided to treat its prisoners, I suppose it’s an appropriate term.)
I appreciate the idea of rehabilitation but don’t see it as practical. I’ve never seen any sound studies or science showing that individuals react in a standard, positive, way to the same incentive process.
I think the incentive should be the freedom of not being in prison rather than incentives offered in the ‘day camp’ prisons existing in some places, what is the incentive not to engage in criminal behavior again?
People, on the whole, are more complex than dogs but its still a good comparison. Dogs may react to overall positive reinforcement but tapping them on the nose yields even better results to dissuade them from bad behavior.
I agree that having them be bored most of the day is bad policy. A better policy would be chain gangs, make them work.