Monday, May 13, 2013

'Overcriminalization and the Importance of Proportionality in Sentencing'

See a bill analysis/policy brief (pdf) with the same title as this post by Vikrant Reddy from the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Center for Effective Justice.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since all your messages are in favor of the criminal, it's funny that you bring up the concept of "proportionality."

Gritsforbreakfast said...

Go on ... Please, for once make an argument related to the subject of the post!

In fact, just for kicks go read Reddy's brief and respond specifically to it. Otherwise, why are you here wasting your time and mine making the same smarmy comment over and over?

Anonymous said...

I foresee a time when those who make a mistake don't take their punishment sitting down. A time when even a shoplifter will decide to fight rather than flee. A time when someone looking at their first low-level felony is willing to kill a cop rather than face a 20-to-life prison term. Maybe even a time when fewer witnesses are left behind to what would have been a misdemeanor just a few years earlier.

A time when the punishment no longer fits the crime so the actors increase their crime to fit the punishment.

Anyone is capable. Imagine that when Lester Blizzard was stopped for his first DWI (when he refused to provide breath or blood samples), does one not think him capable of fleeing the scene if he had been involved in a wreck? Why, his drinking buddy did just that: http://www.examiner.com/article/district-attorney-fraud-investigator-admits-to-dwi-crime

They all want these tougher laws except when the laws ensnare them, then they want (and usually get) a Mulligan.