Eh, I say throw the book at all criminals regardless of gender. I'm a big proponent of putting females on the front lines of war too if the U.S. truly stands for equality. Having grown up as a ward of the court, I have seen judges sentence women to lighter sentences since they view these women as their daughters or mothers that made a one time mistake, in contrast to the men who judges deem useless and dangerous criminals to society and get the book thrown at them.
Just look at the epidemic of U.S. female teachers who sexually abuse their students and get slapped on the wrist compared to the harsher sentences of the men who do abuse their female students
Anyhow, I truly believe the industrial prison complex is too successful for the U.S. to change any aspect it. If anything, we will reignite the drug war and start using social media to lock up more men and the occasional woman. This feeds the narrative that our society does not care about men and that the government is always looking to take care of women at the expense of men and our taxes. As a young man it is hard to see it any other way and has radicalized me towards the manopshere, redpill and mgotw online communities and philosophy.
Then again, I wonder if this the outcome that social engineers are pushing our society towards to? I feel no desire to love, cherish or protect any women in my life after seeing how they can get away with things that I cannot as a man and how society caters to their every whim. / End rant.
There are absolutely crimes and criminals that should be punished more severely, but there's also a place for compassion in the justice system. Many men did make a one-time mistake (or sometimes not even that) and get harshly punished for it. At the same time, there are also men who get a slap on the wrist for crimes that are usually punished more severely. Usually men who are rich, white and/or well connected.
There's way to much bias based on irrelevant circumstances in the US justice system. Black men in particular need a bit more mercy, rich white people need more accountability, women need to be taken more seriously in both directions.
First an foremost, though, the US prison-industrial complex needs to end. Profiting from imprisonment creates perverse incentives. The goal of the prison system needs to be rehabilitation, not corporate profit at the expensive of the people.
Instead of not sentencing people by the book, we need to make the book drastically less harsh for almost every crime. The US's number of people incarcerated is many times higher than comparably developed countries. Our sentencing guidelines are simply too high across the board.
One thesis you could take is that the US, with the largest incarcerated population in the history of the world, could stand to be a little bit less harsh in their sentencing.
Oh sure, but if we're going to get at the big problems in the US criminal justice system, I think there's dozens of broad, general problems (living conditions, privatization of a "public good" service, general focus on punishment vs behavioral reform, etc) that would do better at addressing the issues for the most people involved.
Also, as I was previously trying to state, I feel that we should address this issue by generally changing/lowering sentences. If we can be compassionate towards woman convicts, why not men?
Buried Lede: "But people of different races and genders still fare differently under the guidelines. Race looms large, according to a November 2017 report from the sentencing commission. It found that black men in federal court are sentenced to 19.1 percent more time, on average, than white men who, at least on paper, committed the same crimes and have similar criminal histories."
Compared to the statement "sentences for men are on average 63 percent longer than sentences for women", I think one number is a bit bigger than the other.
There seems to exist three major influences that "dictate" the outcome of a case. Gender and race of the accused, and the blood sugar level on the judge and jury. If you build a prediction model where only those variables are known then you would likely get quite scary accurate results.
Accepting what the submission implies at face value[1]: Even if you lighten sentences on men, it doesn't change that courts favor women. When men are pitted against women in court, such as divorce proceedings, the root problem will remain.
[1]If you disagree with the notion that courts favor women, and you flag me instead of the article, you're doing it wrong. I'm pointing out flaws in submission's logic, not arguing whether or not it is correct.
Well short of gutting the entire "common law" system and switching an entire legal system over to codified law it seems difficult to address the root issue.
Also, this is specifically talking about sentencing which therefor relates to criminal law. You want to get into a myriad of issues relating to Civil law and it's flaws, that's a whole other can of worms.
The issue can be addressed in the law schools, where pretty radicalism and misandrist forms of feminism are respectable mainstream positions for many students and faculty to hold.
The nightmarish campus rape policies aren't created in a vacuum:
> Well short of gutting the entire "common law" system and switching an entire legal system over to codified law it seems difficult to address the root issue.
You could move sentencing only to a separate body from the trial judge and jury, which acts based on a record only of the offenses found by the trial court and the criminal history of the offender, without other information, including the race and gender of anyone involved.
This assumes lighter sentencing achieves the desired effect of sentencing. I suspect we could not even agree on the desired effect of sentencing, much less whether lighter sentencing achieves it.
It also assumes the situation won't be recursive. Lighten sentences for men.. then suddenly women get even lighter sentences. Repeat until there is no sentence at all?
The article basically boils down to, "It's not fair to men. We should Do Something![TM]" It does not strike me as a well thought out appeal to the reader.
Unless I'm missing something, the article you linked to conflates anecdotes from America with statistics from England and Wales. Other problems abound in the article.
Incredibly sloppy job on the part of The Atlantic.
If you actually read the article and the many citations, it’s a strong data-based approach. If you only read the title or skim, or just react emotionally then it could hit you the wrong way. All of which is to say that this is an important issue, it’s presented well and with sensitivity, and it’s just the kind of thought-provoking article called for in the guidelines.
That it’s already flagged off the front page is a credit to no one.
A selection of some of the embedded links from the piece:
If you actually read the article and the many citations, it’s a strong data-based approach.
As a review of the federal sentencing guidelines status quo, sure. As a source of proposed remedies, no.
I didn't go into the article looking for an argument that there were problems with that system and the application of it. I had prior knowledge there, and fleshing it out further wasn't my only reason to read this.
I went into the article looking for the proposed remedies (and a ounce of hope that they wouldn't be as hollow as the headline suggested). If they had limited the scope of the article to the problem they wish to describe, I'd agree with you. But the headline and the "lol, trump" paragraphs aim the article higher. Those aspects don't stick to the tough data-driven no-nonsense image fivethrityeight tries to convey.
Just look at the epidemic of U.S. female teachers who sexually abuse their students and get slapped on the wrist compared to the harsher sentences of the men who do abuse their female students
Anyhow, I truly believe the industrial prison complex is too successful for the U.S. to change any aspect it. If anything, we will reignite the drug war and start using social media to lock up more men and the occasional woman. This feeds the narrative that our society does not care about men and that the government is always looking to take care of women at the expense of men and our taxes. As a young man it is hard to see it any other way and has radicalized me towards the manopshere, redpill and mgotw online communities and philosophy.
Then again, I wonder if this the outcome that social engineers are pushing our society towards to? I feel no desire to love, cherish or protect any women in my life after seeing how they can get away with things that I cannot as a man and how society caters to their every whim. / End rant.