Besides, being fair in punishment just means you can commit a crime and either get away with it or pay a fair price for it, i.e. crime pays.
That's some interesting logic, not sure I get how fairness in sentencing translates into crime paying?
The idea is pretty simple, think of punishment as payment for a crime. If the punishment is fair, then your gains from the crime minus your losses from the punishment balance out. It's like a trade where nobody wins. However, since you may not get caught, there's a chance you have the gains of the crime with no loss, creating an expected gain for committing the crime. Hence, crime pays with fair punishment, your worst case in making out even, but you might get away with it.
The reality is that fairness is too difficult to judge. Not only is it hard to value crime and punishment, but any group of people probably won't even come close to agreeing on how to do it.
Well, OK, now that's something I can understand. Thanks for spelling it out more clearly.
My problem with this sentence is proportionally speaking I think it's a bit harsh and let me explain why:
I recently saw a child molester here in my home state get convicted of raping a half a dozen kids at a day care center. His sentence: 6 years
There was a guy in Rhode Island a few weeks ago convicted of home invasion and assault. He broke into an elderly woman's house at 2 in the morning, beat her with a flashlight, took money and her car. His sentence: 9 to 12 years.
To me, 14 years for a non-violent crime that actually never got committed (they stopped him before he actually did anything) just seems a
little bit harsh. I definitely think he belongs in jail, don't get me wrong. But I think a 7 to 10 year sentence would have sent a similar message. In fact, I would not be surprised to see this sentence revised in a year or two.