Fixing The Scale of Justice

The gavel fell hard upon the imperious desk and my brain still refused to comprehend the magnitude of the pronouncement. In oppressing anxiety, my memory flew back through the whole achieve of my experience, as if trying to get a picture of how much I had lived up to that decisive moment: For violating the drug laws, the People of the United States of America were sentencing me to 144 months (12years) in prison. Being 27 years old at the time, and first time offender, I considered the punishment excessive indeed. At the federal lever one must do 85% of it's time. It was not like I did a heinous or a crime of murder. But, not everybody shares my point of view. Some, as political scientist Stanley C. Brubaker, for instance, take the extreme position that society's most important objective is to punish criminals to maintain acceptable standards of behavior among its people. Similarly extreme is the view of others, such as Linda Rocawich, who argues that society should not punish its violators by imprisonment. Though agreeing with some of each one's premises, I came out with a different conclusion: punishment in America is completely disproportional to the offense. Brubaker, believes that punishing a person for its wrongdoing adequately reflects society's need of keeping a high standard of morality among its people. Punishment, in this sense, is based on retribution: individuals are justified in expressing their resentment and indignation against the infarct, the one who violated the sacred values of the people. Because these values guide the behavior of members in the community, the criminal is held in deep contempt. to the extent of anger and hate, when he willfully choose to disregard the responsibility he owes to others, and the allegiance he owes to principles. Brubaker, also argues that, the philosophy of John Raul's, is merit-less, because it does not account for virtue in human actions. Raul's, theory presupposes free, equal, and rational persons choosing principles of justice under impartial conditions. The person can achieve impartiality by waving any personal interest or alliance he might have, yet retaining his human dependencies and needs towards others. This position & Quote; is untenable, contends Burbaker, because it assumes all moral and intellectual virtue to be arbitrary. Human character, in others words has no basis in this system to be praised or blamed, because nobody would be held responsible for the person he becomes. This fair, rational system fails to account for the emotional response of humans to legal sanctions, which encourage, more than the mere sanction, the pursue of ideal behavior necessary for a better society. Arguing from a different perspective, Rocawich, contends that prisons should disappear from society. This institution has been created by an unjust society to deal with those who dispraised by their oppressive environment break the rules to survive. Statistics of incarceration prove this assertion by showing that though being the minority, blacks, greatly outnumber whites in prison: whites are incarcerated at a rate of 114 per 100,000, while the rate for blacks is over 800 per 100,000. Women, another groups for long time treated unfairly, are also being sent to prison for crimes once thought not to require incarceration. Most of the crimes committed by women are misdemeanors for which they used to receive probation. The other few crimes are murder and manslaughter of the men who abused them and mistreated them for long periods of time. The reason for these crimes, and the low rate of recurrence, however, prove that not even these felon women represent a risk to society. They should be reintegrated to the community, or at most placed in alternative programs of incarceration such as probation, halfway house, or community corrections. But, even these alternatives, designed to free people from the cruelty of prisons, smack of the prevalent draconian philosophy established by conservative thinkers. Besides Strew sentencing, they have also misapplied the intended to be. Thus probationers are being sent to halfway houses instead of home. The increase in prison population is compounded by the attitudes of prosecutors and judges, who believing themselves demigods, enjoy exercising their power and authority over harmless defendants. All this social chaos will continue, without probability of a better change, because the American citizens are ignorant of the ways that an intelligent society should use in dealing with its offenders. the current criminal justice system is cruel and brutal. It is a mechanical system that does not screen out the almost 90 per cent of non-violent offenders who should not be in prison. Not even the remaining 10 percent, concludes Rocawich, should prevent the demolition of the prison walls. I believe Brubaker's, argument to be unsound, because he wrongfully believes that the end of the criminal justice system is to make the person virtuous. Were this the case, criminal liability would falls upon the professional swimmer, who seeing a child drowning in a pool, sits indifferently on the edge, unwilling to take action. Our criminal justice system does not punish such individual. Unless there were some relationship between the child and the swimmer demanding responsibility, the only blame adjudicated to the swimmer would be the scornful one of the community. The function of the criminal justice system is the control of crime. This end has been advocated by the influential & Quote; positive thinking Quote; in contemporary America, which has purified law from philosophy and ethics, leaving the justification of legal pronouncements to the State. Thus the only imperatives found in the criminal justice system are legal in character. In the position held by Brubaker, there is ot justification to embed judicial decisions with the moral sense of the community. Just as a criminal trial is guided by the positive law--in which issues are resolved by codes, facts, and history, rather than general principles and ideas, so should punishment be given to the individual free of passions and ideals. When the Mora; authority traditionally voiced by the family, the school, and the community is given to the courts, the individual will be at great risk of being punished by the judge's bias and personal morality. This is not only unjust to the defendant, but also harmful to the integrity of the criminal justice system. For these reasons, the preservation of morality, justifying infliction of pain on the individual, under the retributive theory of Brubaker, seems to be doubtful. Similarly unacceptable to reason is Rocawich's argument. Her idealistic views of human nature is simply untenable. Although the environment and the economic status predetermine some traits in the individual, this can not, for practical reasons, obviate punishing as an instrument of control in society. More than a function, it is a duty of the State to inflict punishment on those whose wrongful conduct have create a private injury or a social harm. Nether tougher sentencing nor softer one will reduce crime. The first instead create injustice, and the second irresponsibility. punishment should be proportional to the offense and to the offender. In this respect, Raul's, philosophy came also short of the solution. His argument explains the logical structure of his theory of justice, but not the truth or plausibility of its premise. After all, what is and where can we find a free, equal rational agent devoid of emotion?