What’s Wrong with our Justice System
January 28, 2009 – 4:04 pmThanks ginzo of Reddit for pointing out the math, and to innocentbystander for the commentary.
America’s justice system needs an overhaul.
On Tuesday, January 27th, 2009, former AIG executive got sentenced to 4 years in prison for $500 million fraud. Source. The same day, a judge sentenced a homeless man to 15 years in prison. The homelessman had robbed a Louisiana bank and took a $100 bill; after feeling remorseful, he surrendered to police. Source.
Of course, it’s not actually that cut-and-dry. This issue is complicated by the fact that the homeless man has prior convictions. Still though, let’s do the math.
The sentence for the AIG executive is as follows: for every $342,465 he stole, he received 1 day in prison. Forgetting about the prior convictions for a second, in order to get the same punishment as the homeless man, the AIG executive would need to steal $1,874,995,875. That’s nearly $2 billion dollars to get 15 years.
Now let’s apply that ratio to the other gentlemen. Theoretically, for stealing the $100, if he were treated like the AIG executive, he should receive 0.000292000642 days worth of punishment. That’s not even a full minute; actually about 25 seconds. Instead, he gets 15 years.
Now, even considering the prior convictions, the homeless man still should not receive 15 years; he stole $100 bucks and turned himself in the next day. The AIG exec stole half a billion and only got 4 years, and he didn’t even give the money back. That 15-year sentence is absurd no matter what priors the guy has. Furthermore, even if his history is totally clean, the AIG executive still caused far more harm to society and state through his actions than the homeless guy has in his entire criminal life.
That is what’s wrong with our justice system.
Note: Last year, a bunch of conservatives got together and flagged this website as spam on Digg. Because of that, this article cannot be submitted to Digg.
3 Responses to “What’s Wrong with our Justice System”
Just a thought—although not a popular one, as a criminalist, I have to point this out–what if the homeless man WANTED to return to prison? Let’s consider: this is not a new phenomenon. It’s tough to make it out on your own with prior convictions, especially in this economic climate. There is a whole established subculture of homeless/ex-cons who choose to reoffend for the simple purpose of being returned to the penal system, as they find (appropriately so, in many low-and medium-security prisons and jails) that life is easier incarcerated. I think it bears consideration when you have an incident like this occur.
Personally, I feel these Madoffs and AIG execs ought to get life without parole, and am tired of seeing them get away with this type of criminal activity. I mean, after all, where’s the REAL incentive NOT to defraud? There’s very little evidence that they’ll have to do any considerably time IF they are caught. If you are immoral, it’s just a simple gamble.
As for the former issue, I think we need to ask ourselves, as a country, how we are failing the people who are struggling in our society. I’m not talking about the many welfare-receiving baby-machines or the gangsta-types, but the REAL people who’ve made some not-so-good choices and now find themselves on a ride they cannot get off of, because one bad choice leads inevitably to others, when better options are not available.
By knex on Mar 24, 2009