The Link between Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoyevsky in
Crime and Punishment succinctly observed that, “[t]he man who has a conscience suffers
whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.” But some
people’s conscience fails to burden them enough to be a sufficient
enough deterrent. For those people, it would appear that legal ramifications
are perhaps the only thing preventing them from engaging in criminal behavior.
Though that perspective may seem like a cynical one, California Proposition
47 is a prime example of this unfortunate phenomenon in action. Proposition
47 was a referendum passed by California voters on November 4, 2014 that
recategorized a number of nonviolent offenses as misdemeanors rather than
felonies, thereby changing applicable sentencing guidelines. Notably,
it created exceptions for crimes involving $950.00 or less.
The Public Policy Institute of California and preliminary FBI reports show
an increase in property crimes as high as 12 percent since Proposition
47 took effect. It may be easy for some to dismiss this data as what former
British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli would have called “lies,
damned lies, and statistics.” It is possible that the rise in crime
in the period immediately following the decrease in punishment is attributable
to a different reason. Perhaps another factor is at play that is skewing the data.
Actually, there is another factor that may have increased the crime during
this period, but it is still related to Proposition 47. In an
LA Times interview, Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said, “We’ve removed
the disincentive, but we haven't created a meaningful incentive…We’re
putting the people we’re trying to help in a position where we can’t
help them.” The same article for which he interviewed stated that
deputies are often foregoing narcotics arrests entirely (creating a 30%
drop in narcotic arrests in total) because after all of the effort to
arrest and prosecute, perpetrators serve so little time that it makes
no meaningful difference. One need not be a statistician or sociologist
to be aware of the link between drug use and property crime; so it is
not such an unreasonable leap in logic to realize that more drug offenders
on the street may also be contributing to more property crime.
Proposition 47 has also created exceptions large enough for drug offenders
to avoid rehabilitation programs as well. Yolo County District Attorney
Jeff Reisig stated in an interview with the
Daily Democrat, “It used to be that if you were caught in the possession of methamphetamine,
you would be arrested; you'd end up in drug court or in some other
program, probably in custody receiving some type of treatment.”
He continued, “Well, now the officers on the street just give them
a ticket.”
The public perception of the proportionality of crime and punishment may
not always be the best indicator of what works best in society. As well-intentioned
as lenient sentencing reforms may be, the reality of the issue is that
the results are mixed. There are a variety of factors at play in the California
scenario, but already groups in states like Ohio and Connecticut are pushing
for similar reforms. It is unclear whether the changes are beneficial
in the long run, but it would seem that significant parts of some states’
constituency wants this change. Whatever the result, the decision to move
in the direction of more lenient sentences would be more beneficial if
less emphasis were given to public perception and more on hard facts.