A former chairman of the right-wing Proud Boys group was sentenced on Tuesday to 22 years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump trying to overturn the former president's election defeat.
27 year minimum sentences are already insanity. If the justice system is supposed to be corrective rather than vengeful, there’s nothing to be gained from these overly long sentences. No one’s willingness to commit a crime is going to change with a 22 year sentence vs. a 33 year sentence, and the offender is no more likely to reform in years 23-33 than they were in years 12-22.
22 years is A LONG TIME. So long that they’re almost certainly going to have fully adapted to prison life as “normal” long before it ends, and long enough that no one would ever consider it a reasonable cost for potential reward. Someone getting a two-decade sentence was entirely counting on not getting caught/charged.
I’m all for keeping him in there for longer, simply for the purpose of keeping him out of circulation. Doesn’t hurt my feelings that he’s going to be in his 60’s before he gets out.
This. In ordinary cases, I might be for leniency / shorter sentences. However, these people are very dangerous. They are home-grown terrorists and a message has to be sent others who have similar ideas about civil war and/or insurrection in support of fascists like donnie. Keeping people like this out of civilization for a very long timeout is critical.
Yeah but if we were trying we could rehab this dude in like two years. Probation conditions and monitoring could keep him in check, not just him pretty much any convict.
I wonder if we could rehab the entire GOP in two years.
22 years ago was 2001. So the equivalent time from 9/11 to now in prison.
Doesn’t seem like enough to me. I mean I went from 30 something to 50 something, I still have life in front of me.
If your desire is for him to not have any life in front of him, then your goal for the prison system is neither to prevent crime nor to rehabilitate criminals. Just admit it’s bloodthirstiness and execute the wrongdoers.
Attempting to overthrow the government should be a life term or near enough to it.
It helps that he can’t vote for the next 5 presidential elections and on release will no longer be allowed to own guns, but 22 years doesn’t seem like enough.
It’s both corrective, and preventative. Animals like that piece of shit shouldn’t be trusted to walk amongst the public.
What I don’t get is who does he click up with? Are the whites going to take him? Is he white? Do they and will they break rules because of who he is? I ask these questions but in the end don’t give a shit I guess. Good riddance to this loser but yeah our prison system is quite fucked.
This would carry more weight if you cited sources for your statements. ;)
https://www.businessinsider.com/report-says-long-sentences-dont-deter-crime-2014-5?op=1
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/25/16340782/study-mass-incarceration
Science has known harsher sentencing is not a deterrent since the 80’s. Breaking up families and communities causes intergenerational poverty and trauma, and as a result causes more crime. That’s what they teach in criminology because that’s what’s proven by the science.
People who want harsher sentencing instantly reveal themselves as unserious about criminal justice or in any way reducing crime.