Mandatory prison terms for driving under the influence and drug-possession cases, habitual-offender statutes, and the extraordinarily harsh terms of imprisonment for domestic violence would not be favored by St. Thomas. The term of imprisonment must correlate to the severity of the act. Novel or faddish criminalities, and of recent note, hate crimes, tend to exaggerate their seriousness, and as a result, oversell the punishment. Proportionality, that union of act and reaction, is always relevant in a penal context.
p. 171
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