Are longer prison sentences the answer?

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Though that sounds like the best and simplest answer, doing that conflicts with the huge problem of mass incarceration. About 40% of the jail or prison population are in for “violent crimes” and making much longer sentences would only add to that.

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If more jail time isn't the answer, what is? 

 

What needs to happen is for the justice system to take rape seriously. Research from the US National Institute of Justice shows that the chance of being caught is a much more effective deterrent than harsh punishment. “To some degree, this is common sense: People tend to commit crimes thinking they’ll get away with them, so whether they’re punished by 10, 20, or 100 years in prison is really not very important. But if you change their notions that they can get away with a crime by making it more likely the criminal justice will punish them, then you can make an impact.” (Lopez, 2016) The problem with these crimes isn't the fact that people are barely punished when caught. The fact that people don’t seem to get caught and punished at all is the problem. The Police don't take the cases seriously so too many of the accused get away. How much prison time they get could be lessened if the belief in them is expanded enough. RAND Corporation in South Dakota has found that is you place drunk divers under a very strict probation period and made them take a "twice-a-day alcohol test" (if they failed, they had to undergo a night or two in jail). The program showed a

• 4.2% decrease in average adult mortality rates

• 12% reduction in repeat DUI arrests

• 9% reduction in domestic violence arrests at the county level

These are proof that big drops like that can be achieved with a "relatively mild threat of a couple of days in jail". If some system like this was implemented correctly in our government it could, potentially, reduce prison sentences, curb mass incarceration, and keep under control the discouraging effects of the criminal justice system. What needs to go away is the question of who knows what really happened?​ “Real repair will require recognizing that distorted, selective sympathies have already made our legal system what it is and that those distortions afflict judges and prosecutors and investigators alike. It will require expanding that sympathy to groups who have historically not received it.” (Loofbourow, 2019)​ The Justice system should ask what the victims think "repair" looks like to them. 

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