Focus on restitution, not incarceration, to better serve justice – LA Daily News

It is often noted that Americans live in a very litigious society. This criticism is typically leveled at frivolous tort cases and ambulance-chasing trial lawyers, but it extends equally to the legislators who write unnecessary laws and the government agents such as district attorneys, judges and police who enforce them.

The U.S. has the largest incarceration rate in the world, aided by the prevalence of victimless crimes (particularly nonviolent drug crimes) and a predilection for incarceration as primary option for punishment. But while there may be a strong drive to do something when someone is harmed by another, locking people up is oftentimes not in the interest of justice. Perhaps this is best illustrated in cases involving accidents, especially when those at fault are family members.

In one high-profile example, just last month an 18-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter and drunk driving after she crashed her car in Merced County, killing her 14-year-old sister, who was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the vehicle. The case received heightened attention because the accident was captured in a graphic livestreamed video recording on Instagram, which showed her fatally wounded sister lying in a grassy field.

Last year, a 53-year-old Arkansas man was charged with felony manslaughter for the death of his 4-year-old grandson, who was killed in an accident while mowing some brush on the family ranch. A tractor tire hit a hole in the ground and the boy fell off the tractor and was run over by the mower.

Then there are the instances where distracted or forgetful parents have been charged for the death of a child inadvertently left in a hot or even mildly warm vehicle.

I cannot imagine how those at fault in the cases above will be able to deal with what they have done. That torturous guilt is a greater punishment than any that could be inflicted by a judge and prosecutor.

A family is only doubly punished, however, when a second family member is taken from it, this time by the state, to waste away in prison. It is as much a punishment to the other victims the remaining children, who must grow up without a mother or father, or the spouse, who is now rendered a single parent who must support the rest of the family alone as it is to the one at fault. In an added cruel twist, the family is forced to support these efforts to further tear it apart through their taxes.

In such cases, society is not served by turning a private tragedy into a larger public burden. Sometimes a tragic accident is just an accident, and the consequences are punishment enough.

Even in cases that do not involve parties within the same family, victims should have more say on the punishment of perpetrators, and the focus should be more on restitution than incarceration.

Sentencing someone to prison may pad a district attorneys tough on crime bona fides, but it does little to compensate the victims. The criminal will rot in prison, on the taxpayers dime, and perhaps learn even more criminal, anti-social behaviors from his fellow prisoners, which he may then inflict on society if he gets out.

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But before government assumed a greater role in crime and punishment, and even still today in places like Japan or informal tribal arrangements, perpetrators and victims were encouraged to negotiate to agree upon an appropriate restitution to compensate the victims, or their families. If the criminal could not afford the restitution all at once, he could pay it off over time through his labor. In a stark contrast to the incarceration model, this also encourages him to develop skills and to once again become a productive member of society.

In cases of extreme violence, where the facts are clear and the criminal exhibits no remorse, incarceration and an eye for an eye approach may be appropriate. But we should recognize that, as in other areas, the politicization of crime and punishment has led those in government to lose sight of individual rights in the pursuit of a nebulous societal good, and to serve the interests of the government agents charged with enforcement, not necessarily the interests of victims. A system of true justice and compassion would recognize that sometimes accidents result in tragedy that no prison cell can remedy, and would focus on addressing the needs and wishes of the victims, not adding another notch on a DAs belt before the next election.

Adam B. Summers is a columnist with the Southern California News Group.

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Focus on restitution, not incarceration, to better serve justice - LA Daily News