Re:NYC jail complex to be restored into citywide green energ...
by wahern on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @01:01PM
(#33535435)
> It's obviously not as simple as just "reduce jail terms",
This is really what needs to happen. However, the U.S. criminal justice system is geared toward severe sentencing. One reason is that the U.S. is the only country in the world (AFAIK) that guarantees jury trials for even petty criminal offenses.[1] So when a crime is prosecuted, both the police and government are strongly incentivized to make it count, thus the felony inflation to secure multi-year sentences, and to dissuade criminals from overburdening the system by demanding jury trials in minor cases.
> it can't be that the Americans are just built so they commit crime more.
The number of people the U.S. newly incarcerates each year is comparable with many other European countries, such as the U.K. However, the sentence lengths are 3-5x longer. In the U.K., ~80% of all prisoners are released within 1 year. This is almost certainly related to the fact that (AFAIU) the U.K. only grants jury trials for indictable offenses, or what in the U.S. we still generally call felonies. IOW, lesser offenses are more economical to prosecute in the U.K. and so that's where the emphasis lies.
In civil systems with even fewer procedural safeguards than the U.K., such as France, where it's easier to convict and jail someone, including pre-trial, sentence lengths are even shorter.
Unfortunately, American constitutional criminal rights protections have helped to build a system which is too lenient on the one-hand--petty and misdemeanor crimes don't see much attention--and too harsh on the other--when the government decides to prosecute, they prosecute hard.
[1] NYC is a rare exception, due to an esoteric New York State law that permits NYC to prosecute many misdemeanors without a jury trial. Probably not coincidentally, NYC sentence lengths and its incarceration rate are lower than other comparable U.S. cities.
This is really what needs to happen. However, the U.S. criminal justice system is geared toward severe sentencing. One reason is that the U.S. is the only country in the world (AFAIK) that guarantees jury trials for even petty criminal offenses.[1] So when a crime is prosecuted, both the police and government are strongly incentivized to make it count, thus the felony inflation to secure multi-year sentences, and to dissuade criminals from overburdening the system by demanding jury trials in minor cases.
> it can't be that the Americans are just built so they commit crime more.
The number of people the U.S. newly incarcerates each year is comparable with many other European countries, such as the U.K. However, the sentence lengths are 3-5x longer. In the U.K., ~80% of all prisoners are released within 1 year. This is almost certainly related to the fact that (AFAIU) the U.K. only grants jury trials for indictable offenses, or what in the U.S. we still generally call felonies. IOW, lesser offenses are more economical to prosecute in the U.K. and so that's where the emphasis lies.
In civil systems with even fewer procedural safeguards than the U.K., such as France, where it's easier to convict and jail someone, including pre-trial, sentence lengths are even shorter.
Unfortunately, American constitutional criminal rights protections have helped to build a system which is too lenient on the one-hand--petty and misdemeanor crimes don't see much attention--and too harsh on the other--when the government decides to prosecute, they prosecute hard.
[1] NYC is a rare exception, due to an esoteric New York State law that permits NYC to prosecute many misdemeanors without a jury trial. Probably not coincidentally, NYC sentence lengths and its incarceration rate are lower than other comparable U.S. cities.