Date Written: 12/8/2022
Assignment: Write 500 words on this topic: “Is restitution to victims better for society than jail sentences for criminals? Explain.”
Many people don’t realize it, but the criminal-justice system of today is really perverse. We can all agree that the point of the criminal-justice system is to help the victim of the crime right? Sadly our criminal-justice system just doesn’t do that.
There are three things that can happen when someone is caught committing a crime.
1) They have to pay a hefty fine to the state.
2) They are sent to prison for a certain amount of time.
3) They have to do both.
Do any of these three things benefit the victim? When the criminal is fined the victim never sees any of that money; it goes right to the state. When they are sent to prison the result is even worse. At prison criminals receive free food, free housing, and free education. But none of this stuff is actually free it has to be payed for by someone. That someone is the taxpayers. The state taxes everyone, so that they can warehouse these criminals. In 99% of cases the victim is a taxpayer. Therefore, the victim has to pay to house the same criminal that attacked them. Another bad thing about prison is that criminals learn how to be better criminals. When criminals are exposed to more of their kind they talk and through their collective knowledge, they learn how to become better criminals. Option 3 simply combines the two evils.
To further demonstrate the point, let’s look at an example. Imagine a criminal stole $10,000 from a random guy named Joe. Naturally, Joe wants his money to be returned to him, but sadly this will never happen. Eventually the criminal gets caught and then the state charges him a fine of $10,000. So now the state is holding onto Joe’s $10,000 and Joe is still out $10,000. The criminal is also sent to prison for 3 years. To pay for the criminal’s imprisonment, the state taxes the people. Because Joe is a taxpaying citizen he is required, by the state, to pay $400 per year to help pay for the criminal’s imprisonment. So now Joe has lost an additional $1,200. Also after the criminal’s three-year sentence is up, he will most likely go right back to his nefarious deeds, and be better at them too. Then in the end, there is poor Joe. He never saw his stolen money again and he also had to pay some too.
The Solution
The best way to handle criminals is to have them pay restitution to their victims. This means that they have to return what they stole to the victim. This way the victim ends up on top; they get back what the criminal stole. If the criminal physically harmed somebody, then they should pay for their medical bill plus an additional amount for the time they lost. With this system the victim wins and the criminal and the state lose.
This system is also better at rehabilitating the criminals too. When criminals are required to work to pay their victim they are exposed to other good people. This way they see the benefits of hard work and they aren’t around many other criminals. They are given a chance to atone for their crimes instead of rotting away in a prison where they aren’t helping anyone.
Our current criminal-justice system is broken. It doesn’t benefit the victim. It only benefits the state. We need to restore the old system of restitution. Only then will the victim come out on top.
Reading this makes me so angry as a hard working taxpayer. How did our system become so broken without people pushing back?