![]() Criminals seem to value the future less than non criminals, one study found, meaning that long sentences can seem “arbitrary”, and only work to deter up to a point. In addition to being somewhat arbitrary (why 13,275 years?), there’s not a lot of evidence to suggest that the threat of prison time actually deters ex-prisoners from committing crimes. Research shows that long prison sentences don’t really work on several fronts. There’s retribution (punishing the person for doing something wrong), rehabilitation (correcting problematic behaviour), safety (keeping threats out of the community) and deterrence (making sure both they, and others, are scared off of breaking the law in the future). When a judge hands a sentence to someone who’s about to go to jail, there are four main factors that go into the decision. And while Kittitradilok’s case was mostly optics, plenty of people around the world really do spend their whole lives behind bars.įor example, Terry Nichols, one of the accomplices in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, was given 161 life sentences with no possibility for parole.īut does a long prison sentence actually keep the streets safer? We considered the evidence. Still, there’s something about the idea of a long prison term that gives the impression that justice is being served. But in actuality, thanks to Thailand’s penal code that limits prison sentences, Kittitradilok will only end up serving 20 years. He was sentenced to a staggering 13,275 years in jail – an amount of time longer than the entire Neolithic era. Natapoff said that successful strategies include decriminalization, reduced arrests, reduced use of bail, and increased exercise of prosecutorial discretion to decline to prosecute low-level cases in which an arrest itself is enough of a punishment.In December 2017, a Thai man named Phudit Kittitradilok was convicted of swindling 2,400 people out of 574 million baht (£13 million) in a Ponzi scheme that promised high return investments. The book observes that jurisdictions across the country are implementing reforms to reign in the misdemeanor system. In addition to crushing fines and fees and incarceration, people convicted of misdemeanors face serious collateral consequences, including loss of employment and housing, threatened immigration status, and disqualification from welfare benefits, student loans, and a range of licenses and jobs. Because they fund courts, probation offices, public defender and prosecutor offices, and even the general budget in some jurisdictions, she argues that misdemeanors function as a regressive tax policy that shifts costs for basic services to the poorest citizens. “Misdemeanors are moneymakers for local jurisdictions,” Ms. Bond schedules for misdemeanors can require those too poor to pay to wait days in jail before seeing a judge. People who are too poor to hire a lawyer must pay a fee to apply for a public defender and people who are incarcerated because they could not pay their fines and fees are charged jail fees. People are put on probation or other court supervision, and even incarcerated, because they are too poor to pay fees, which can be charged for everything from supervision and drug testing to DNA collection. One of the particularly burdensome and inequalitarian aspects of low-level offenses is the effect of imposing fines and fees on misdemeanor defendants.įines, court fees, bail, and other monetary penalties can result in crushing debt. The system also disproportionately punishes the poor, Ms. ![]() White people facing misdemeanor charges were nearly 75 percent more likely than Black people to have all charges carrying potential imprisonment dropped, dismissed, or reduced to lesser charges. Natapoff argues in “Punishment Without Crime” undermines the reliability of convictions and traps the innocent.Īll but a handful of misdemeanor cases are resolved by plea deals, and recent studies have found that racial disparities in plea agreements were even greater in misdemeanor cases than in felony cases. Public defenders lack resources to investigate cases and face pressure from prosecutors and judges not to file motions or litigate constitutional issues, which Ms. With 13 million misdemeanor cases filed every year, public defenders, prosecutors, and judges face crushing case loads. Natapoff estimates that misdemeanors comprise approximately 80 percent of all arrests and 80 percent of state dockets, based on arrest data from the FBI and other statistical reports. While there is no definitive national data on the number or type of misdemeanor cases, Ms. Misdemeanors - minor, law-level criminal offenses punishable by no more than one year in jail or prison - account for about 80 percent of American criminal dockets, Ms. A new book by former federal public defender and legal scholar Alexandra Natapoff examines an aspect of American criminal justice that she argues is often overlooked: misdemeanors.
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