Evil Criminal Justice System

People need to be responsible for their actions. To some extent, society needs to take responsibility because people are a product of society. Punishments need to be enough to deter crime. I believe that punishments are often more severe than necessary, at a high cost to society. These costs are both financial and social. There is ongoing cost to society when one gets out of prison because they are displaced from employment. It is hard for them to get a job.

When they become inarcerated, often creditors take a loss because debts are not collectable. Families of incarcerated may need social assistance. Family and friends are punished in various ways. These things need more consideration. This is besides the high cost of running the prison systems.

The above aren't the main evil that I see in the criminal justice system.

• There are often laws that have some ambiguity in what legislators intended. The government's lawyers are often more experienced and have more resources than the offender's lawyers, espeially if they rely on public defenders. It isn't reasonable for them to put as much time and effort as the prosecutors might. The resulting judgments are often skewed against the offender. Those judgments become case law that is used against other offenders.

• There is much wasted judicial resources when the court system doesn't do the right thing during appeals. Sometimes rules prevent them from doing the right thing. Those rules need to be fixed. Sometimes the judges and district attorneys don't want to correct their mistakes. Again, decisions made in those cases become case law for other cases. I am thinking of a case that was in appeals for almost 10 years. The case had arguable merrit, but it was sent back multiple times because of mistakes made by public defenders and also by court officials. They can resist fixing their mistakes and thereby make you spend the time incarcerated anyway. This isn't right and is costly.

• The justice system isn't equal for various offenders. Pennsylvania has sentencing guidelines that have a stated purpose of ensuring that like offenders receive like punishments. Even though each offense has an allowed range for the sentence, the judge is given great discretion in sentencing in that he can choose between consecutive or concurrent sentencing. There are almost always multiple counts of related offenses. Whether sentencing is consecutive or concurrent makes a lot more difference than if he simply went outside of the guidelines on the main offense. How does this make sense? This is a big reason for long sentences and results in higher prison population over time. I believe there should be some kind of commission tasked with looking at the long sentences that were because of multiple consecutive sentences to see if there was abuse in sentencing, and given the power to make things right.

• We should be mindful that some people become rehabilitated during incarceration. The sentencing judge can't forsee who might be rehabilitated and who will turn worse through incarceration. There are minimum and maximum sentences which should be for this reason. Rather than giving discretion for unlimited consecutive sentences on related charges, judges should be more limited on the minimum sentence, the maximum sentence being there for those who don't become rehabilitated. Again, some prisoners change for the better and don't need excessive incarceration.

These things may be of little importance to most people because they would rather that offenders remain out of sight and out of mind. I feel that it isn't their fault they are in this world, and to some extent they are a product of society. I certainly am not advocating turning them all loose. But, I have compassion for some who I know have changed and are wasting away. They can't help themselves other than through appeals, which don't usually go fairly. They need advocates, and we have incentive to help those who deserve it.