this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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Darryl Anderson was drunk behind the wheel of his Audi SUV, had his accelerator pressed to the floor and was barreling toward a car ahead of him when he snapped a photo of his speedometer. The picture showed a car in the foreground, a collision warning light on his dashboard and a speed of 141 mph (227 kph).

An instant later, he slammed into the car in the photo. The driver, Shalorna Warner, was not seriously injured but her 8-month-old son and her sister were killed instantly, authorities said. Evidence showed Anderson never braked. 

Anderson, 38, was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years in prison for the May 31 crash in northern England that killed little Zackary Blades and Karlene Warner. Anderson pleaded guilty last week in Durham Crown Court to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

I get it, but also when I think about if that happened to my sister, let alone my child, no amount of time would be enough. 2 years for ripping two people out of your life feels like a pittance. How do you separate the emotion from the practicality?

[–] [email protected] 61 points 3 months ago (3 children)

With all due respect, the justice system shouldn't exist for you to experience vengeance. It's easy to get angry and to wish harm against people who would hurt our loved ones, but at scale we just end up with a punitive justice system that begets even more violence and misery.

If a person can be reformed after committing a profound injustice to the point where we can trust that they won't repeat their crimes, why would we want their sentence to be lengthy and cruel when it could instead be compassionate and effective?

Forgiveness is a powerful thing. If you can't even think of forgiving this hypothetical transgression you've come up with, how can you ever hope to have a positive influence on this world that might actually protect others from the kind of tragedy you've described?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Not vengeance but justice. 2 years in prison then off you go is not justice. Now two years and 15 years paying support to the family you have wronged can be justice.

But just two years till you're good is not how it's supposed to work. There needs to be consequences otherwise there is no difference between somone going into rehab voluntarily for two years and somone killing two people and then being forced to go to rehab.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

How do you know when a person is reformed versus playing the part to get out earlier? Is there a risk of the system being abused by those who commit a crime knowing that they can get out in a couple years' time?

If you can't even think of forgiving this hypothetical transgression you've come up with, how can you ever hope to have a positive influence on this world that might actually protect others from the kind of tragedy you've described?

I'm sorry but I'm not sure I see the connection here. How does forgiveness prevent such tragedies?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

Which is why we don’t come up with our own punishments.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

People shouldn't be locked in cages just because of someone's emotions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I don't know that emotion is so easily divorced from justice. How do you define what a just punishment is for a crime? Or does the magnitude of the crime not matter?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We learn over and over again from our various texts-of-wisdom, be it fables or scripture or novels or movies, that revenge is a primitive response to problems. It's the moral of so many stories, right?

Yet we organize society to satisfy these immature desires. Punishment, for the most part, is neither deterrent nor corrective, and a paltry form of redress.

Do you want justice? Start with redress. You can't fix the problem of a dead child but the victims need proper support, to alleviate all the other issues caused by the crime. In Canada the prison system is called "corrections" but it mostly fails at that... rehabilitation requires an evidence-based system to succeed, and ours is built on punishment, an emotional response.

If you want deterrence, well that requires eliminating poverty and supplying real education, backed by proactive and robust mental health services.

I define justice as the best possible outcome of a bad situation.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

So the crime committed and the effect on the victims, if any, doesn't affect the sentencing?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Uh, sure it does, in the sense that if someone is unable to be rehabilitated, they should be kept away from the public? Not sure what you're asking except maybe "can I please just have a little revenge?"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm confused on how you quantify rehabilitation. How do you know someone has changed?

And yeah I guess I'm genuinely having trouble wrapping my head around the idea that first degree murder and shoplifting could result in the same sentence.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Why would they result in the same sentence? That's a strange proposal that I have never heard before.

Regarding rehab, well that's a procedural question more than legislative. Ask experts in the field. It's not like the problem is new, even if it's evident we are going about it fundamentally wrong.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Now I'm confused, I thought the premise of this thread is that jail time should be based not on the severity of the crime, but only how long it takes to rehabilitate the offender. Did I misunderstand that?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yeah I was pointing out that the prison system may be completely ineffective where it's based on punishment. It's a critical view, not prescriptive, and designing a new system requires a revolutionary approach, with consideration for the needs of the victims as well as the mental state of the perpetrators.

I wasn't proposing anything pat and simple like one-size-fits-all incarceration, completely the opposite, actually. Maybe forever in prison, maybe no jail time. Justice, in terms of repairing things for a victim, might mean a lifelong burden for the convicted, or something else entirely. It would necessarily be complex. More emotional, less rational people would have a problem with that since they can't see justice without punishment.