John_David_Galt said on July 25, 2007  

I like your idea of more certain jail time for "minor" offenses. However, I feel this is only part of the story. These other reforms are needed more.

1. Some offenses can cost victims dearly but are regarded by police agencies as very minor and are usually not pursued at all (example: vandalism of somebody's car). This is an unacceptable situation because it completely fails to deter (studies have shown that criminals pay more attention to the probability of a penalty than to its size). My solution would be to impose a penalty (in either money or work-gang time) large enough to compensate all victims including those whose perps weren't caught, then distribute the proceeds to all such victims.

2. Many "offenses" on the books -- especially those that in themselves do no harm to anyone (loitering, vagrancy, drunk in public) -- exist only to give police an excuse to pick on anyone whose looks they don't like. This police discretion needs to be absolutely abolished, not only because "looking wrong" is simply not wrong, but because it breaks the guarantee of predictability known as the Rule of Law, which is a human right.

Indeed, all seldom-enforced laws (including those in my item 1) amount to violations of my item 2.

Furthermore, when you come down to it, the point of all drug and vice laws is to pick on people who "don't look right", so they need to go, too.

 martin said on July 26, 2007  

" My solution would be to impose a penalty ... large enough to compensate all victims including those whose perps weren't caught, then distribute the proceeds to all such victims."

Nice idea, but I think it wouldn't fly. Gives me sort of a bad feeling that someone gets to pay for something he didn't do. By all means, make them pay restitution for what they DID do. But solely to the damaged party. Otherwise the cops will take even less trouble to investigate the buglaries in the knowledge that the victim gets comepnsated. Also, it will be difficult enough to extract any money from the usual deadbeat petty criminals or clueless juveniles doing property damage. However, a lot of energy and resources are expended on keeping track of sex offenders, often for dubious populist political reasons. Why not use the technology to keep track of delinquent restitutions? I bet that would be highly popular as well.