CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
The current justice system penalty of extended incarceration only exacerbates the problems and doesn’t work after over a century of testing it. Furthermore there is no moral, religious, practical or public interest basis for putting a thief behind bars for years. Everyone loses from such a system of taking the crime of an individual and then using that crime to hurt his family and all of society in a systematic way.
THE VICTIMS OF CRIME
The victims of crime are victimized again by the system that is only geared to make more victims with no solutions.
The victims of crime want Justice. Justice comes to victims in two ways, restitution of their losses and punishment of the perpetrator. They do not want to pay their taxes to see the perpetrator being housed at great public expense and they being left broken and hurt while the system spares no expense to attack the perpetrator with a punishment that harms the entire public and does not reform the perpetrator.
RESTITUTION
While it is always good to forgive, it is a separate thing to be made whole again. If someone criminally or by gross negligence causes the loss of someone’s eye limbs or loss of property, that should be restored at the amount appropriate for the loss. A criminal caught stealing should pay a restitution of four times the amount and the resources of the Judiciary should be used to exact that for the victim. The same for a drunk driver that causes injury, should have their license taken from them and their wages garnered until they pay compensation commensurate with the damage that they caused in their negligence of driving drunk.
END INCARCERATION
While some form of incarceration should continue for dangerous criminals in order to protect society it is not warranted for other crimes that should be adjudicated with restitution, garnishing of wages, public shaming and public corporal punishment. In the Bible they had up to and must not exceed 40 lashes. In Thailand they have public caning for many crimes such as drug possession and petty theft. It hurts everyone and does not reform bad behavior to use incarceration as a form of punishment.
Publicly receiving a caning in your behind, or being shamed by being forced to clean public streets wearing a sign saying, “I was caught stealing” is more effective in changing behavior and far less costly and damaging to the family and the society than years of incarceration. Years of incarceration simply puts the criminal on hold while we pay for the storage and increase his career criminal education in the most expensive university in the world called prisons.
Prisoners, who are held for long durations to protect society, should be taught trades that can be useful for society such as auto mechanics, livestock raising, alternative healing and other useful trades that will enhance their skills and make them useful and productive members of society when they are released from prison.