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Robinson's Defense | |
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< | Lawrence Joseph's Robinson probably wouldn't want a defense. Nonetheless, I intend to provide him with one, because I believe it could be helpful in understanding how we think about the criminal law as a whole. | >
> | Lawrence Joseph's Robinson probably wouldn't want a defense. Nonetheless, I intend to provide him with one because I believe it could be helpful in understanding how we think about the criminal law as a whole. | | | | |
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< | There are millions of lawyers doing millions of jobs all over the world, but there is something about the work of the criminal defense lawyer that makes many of us think, "I could never do that." But why, exactly, do we say this? | >
> | There are millions of lawyers doing millions of jobs all over the world, but there is something about the work of the criminal defense lawyer that makes many of us say, "I could never do that." But why, exactly, do we say this? | | |
Bucking the System | |
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< | On the most basic level, Robinson is standing against the criminal law and against justice and he is doing so on behalf of "bad" men. Therefore, he is a bad man himself. But if Holmes was correct and the law is what it does, then Robinson is setting himself against a system that imprisons young, poor, male minorities in enormous numbers, that takes husbands from wives and fathers from children, that robs communities of vast swathes of their young people, that murders men in the name of justice and that incarcerates the innocent along with the guilty. From this perspective, it seems like Robinson actually does good work. And yet, that's not how many of us instinctively feel. | >
> | On the most basic level, Robinson is standing against the criminal law and against justice and he is doing so on behalf of "bad" men. Therefore, he is a bad man himself. But if Holmes was correct and the law is what it does, then Robinson is setting himself against a system that imprisons young, poor, male minorities in enormous numbers, that takes husbands from wives and fathers from children, that robs communities of vast swathes of their young people, that murders men in the name of justice and that incarcerates the innocent along with the guilty. From this perspective, it seems like Robinson actually does good work. And yet, that's not how many of us instinctively feel. | | |
Deterrence | | | Individual deterrence takes two forms: first, the belief that a stern enough sentence will prevent a criminal from repeating his offense and, second, that if a criminal is locked up he will be completely "deterred" from committing a future crime. | |
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< | The first argument is easy to dispose of. Studies show that much individual crime is a reaction to an immediate, stressful situation and that the perpetrators are often under the influence of drugs or alcohol. If we were really concerned about preventing recidivism, we would focus on working with the incarcerated to change the way they react when they are faced with stressful trigger situations. We would, in other words, focus our penal system on rehabilitation. Quite obviously, we do not. | >
> | The first argument is easy to dispose of. Studies show that much individual crime is a reaction to an immediate, stressful situation and that the perpetrators are often under the influence of drugs or alcohol. If we were really concerned about preventing recidivism, we would focus on working with the incarcerated to change the way they react when they are faced with stressful trigger situations. We would, in other words, focus our penal system on rehabilitation. Quite obviously, we do not. | | | | |
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< | The problem with the second argument is that time in prison is damaging. When convicts are eventually released into a community, they are mentally and emotionally worse off and they are more dangerous to the community. California's three strikes law "fixes" this problem by sentencing repeat offenders to life in prison. A nice, neat solution, except that it is economically untenable and leads to things like this. | >
> | The problem with the second argument is that time in prison is damaging. When convicts are eventually released, they are mentally and emotionally worse off than they were at conviction. They may be even more dangerous to the community. California's three strikes law "fixes" this problem by sentencing repeat offenders to life in prison. A nice, neat solution, except that it is economically untenable and leads to things like this. | | | Future Actor Deterrence |
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