Galvanic Ink

When it comes to the criminal justice system, this is perhaps one of the more important decisions that need to be considered when assigning a person’s penalization. Is the authority hoping to punish the wrongdoer or discipline the behavior? One thing I talk a lot about when it comes to criminal justice is our end game. Clearly, we all want to live in a world without crime. But history and human nature tells us that this world is and can only ever be a fairy tale. Whether it’s a hungry child stealing a candy bar or a grown man murdering his cheating wife. Something will inevitably happen which causes a crime.

There are safeguards that may be put into place to limit the amount of crimes commit by people in a given area, but the best possible safeguards and policies simply reduce the amount of crimes. They can never eliminate. With that in mind, the end game may be seen as the most extreme reduction in crime rates in any given area.

However, the reduction in crime can only be enacted in two extreme areas: before and after. While I do have articles discussing the prevention of crime (before) by means of reducing the desire to commit an offense by someone not yet convicted, this article will simply be referring to the opposite. A person has commit an offense and is now awaiting judgment (after). The judgment can take the form or either discipline or punishment.

Take a child who has broken an expensive vase at the store. We can ignore the prevention aspect for now, such as whether the vase was locked away or even whether the child knew that the vase was in such a position to be broken. The authority, say the parent or guardian, is now in a position to determine how best the handle the situation. To penalize the child may take form of standing them in a corner, grounding them to their bedroom or even spanking them. All of which may been viewed as acceptable methods of correction. However, all of which can be abused in their own right.

When it comes to standing a child in the corner or grounding them, how long should this last? Will they be afforded restroom breaks? Food? When spanking the child, how much force should be used? Hand or belt? How many strikes are served? If we know that the child is likely to never break another vase by simply standing them in the corner for 20 minutes, should we still allow them to be spanked because that’s the traditional penance? All of these questions are answered with the base premise of this article. Discipline or punishment.

We’ll be using our own bastardization of the definitions of these words to better accommodate a more commonly understood difference between them. To discipline is to satisfy the desire of preventing the subject (the child) from making the same mistake (breaking the vase). To punish is to satisfy the loss (the vase or what it represents) in the heart and mind of the victim (the owner of the vase) and all adjacent victims (the parent or guardian of the child).

Satisfying the loss may sound appealing, but everyone’s loss is different. If the vase was handcrafted with no appraised valuation, the owner of the vase may not be satisfied with a 20 minute time out and a $50 payment. They may demand greater compensation or longer time out. The satisfaction of victims will differ between different individuals for the exact same crimes. Which means that the same crime will have different punishments depending on the aggrieved parties. I don’t think I need to express how truly unjust this system is.

To further analyze this, here’s another example: If you drove drunk and sideswiped my car, I may be satisfied with you paying for the repairs, having you license suspended for 6 months and attending a class on the dangers of drunk driving (with testimony from survivors of those killed in similarly caused accidents). Another person would likely want you to serve jail time. A lesser tolerant person may want you to suffer a few broken bones as punishment or worse. You can see how victim satisfaction can cause a dilemma when it comes to Lady Justice balancing the scales appropriately. If three people commit crimes of this same scenario and were each given the different sentencing parameters as described, the same crime would be three wholly different sentences making two of the criminals significantly more bitter about their outcomes. Equal justice can never exist when taking victim satisfaction into consideration.

If our goal is to punish, again the question arises, is it to be used as a deterrent for others to commit crimes or for the same individual to not reoffend? If so, it’s not working. Studies have proven that a more severe punishment has never prevented a crime from taking place, it has only helped the criminal become more clever in not getting caught for the crime and upset them more when they are caught. If punishment is being used as a deterrent, then the user of said punishment is either misguided or they get hard at the thought of punishing people. Either way, this should be something we avoid.

After all, using the Death Penalty as a deterrent for rubbing coal on your face at night in the Victorian era didn’t prevent people from doing so. Cutting off the hands of thieves hasn’t stopped theft in certain parts of the world. Stoning adulterers to death hasn’t eliminated cheating. These tactics of increasing punishments don’t prevent crimes or re-offenses.

With that said, I’m not opposed to increasing punishments to match the crimes in question. When some states made animal abuse a felony, I was entirely on board. Not because I felt that this would prevent animal abuse, but because an abuser of animals suffered such little repercussions that it didn’t dissuade anyone from doing so. The appropriate level of discipline in this scenario may very well be the temporary loss of community access and a large fine. I would love for a person to be restricted from owning pets if their crime was egregious enough.

But to consider the appropriate repercussions, one must have the goal of ensuring that the offender sees the error of their ways and is far less likely from commiting the offense again. This means that a person must be subject to discipline. A one year prison sentence may provide the same outcome as a 5 year prison sentence. Therefore a 5 year prison sentence should be seen as excessive if not cruel and unusual punishment.

If a person is seen kicking a dog just for the sake of doing so and you can know that this person may change their future actions with a 6 month sentence, $1000 donation animal rescue services and a series of meetings where the effects of animal abuse are expressed in such a way that the offender may learn to empathize (or at least understand); then it is the responsibility of the authority figure to provide disciplinary measures comparable to those parameters. they may exceed the parameters in such a way to encompass wiggle room in case those exact parameters are not quite enough for whatever justified reason. A 1 year sentence, $2000 donation and attendance of the classes followed by 150 hours of community service in animal shelters may very well appease the mind of anyone hoping that the offender may change their future actions. (I would also assume that the offender would be forced into therapy sessions to analyze the actions and their causes as well as being barred from owning a pet until all criteria are met in full)

This is the difference between discipline and punishment. Punishment may be excessive yet deemed just because of the emotional impact of the injured party. Discipline may be excessive yet deemed just because of the need to compensate for a person’s ability to improve.

There is no gray area when penalizing an offender. Punishment doesn’t work in most cases (while I’m sure many people will be quick to cite several instances where it has). Discipline has a far greater track record when coupled with the appropriate prevention methods. People don’t commit crimes simply because they’re in the mood. They do it for a reason. Discipline, when provided proportionally, helps to curb that reason.