Hey Riley, I really enjoyed reading your post this week! Continuing your idea that the criminal justice system is too lax, and this has had a detrimental impact on offenders in Canada. Davies (2008) discussed the idea of Project Ceasefire which was presented by Boston officials to help reduce youth gangs and crime rates. The project is what they call a lever-pulling strategy which aims to prevent violent crime by being incredibly tough on crime. The name lever-pulling strategy comes from the idea of pulling every lever, in other words using every strategy available to prosecute or punish those who use crime, specifically, those who use guns in the commission of a crime (Davies, 2008). In order for this project to come into effect both the provincial
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While this is true that Canada no longer has the death penalty (Munroe, n.d.), and I agree that this could act as a deterrent, however I do not believe we should reintroduce capital punishment. According to Davies (2008), along with the morality issues behind capital punishment, research indicates there is racial and gender disparity when it comes to death penalty sentencing. Furthermore, this means that this penalty would not be equally distributed to those who commit crime across a population. Therefore it cannot act as a deterrent because in order to deter individuals from committing a crime there are three main components that affect deterrence. These components are celerity, certainty, and severity (Williams, 2013). Firstly celerity, the punishment needs to be given as close to the crime as possible and for the death penalty this is difficult to accomplish. Secondly, certainty is very important because everyone who commits a certain crime must receive the same punishment, but as stated by Davies (2008), we see that there are factors that have nothing to do with the crime that influence whether one will be sentenced to death. Finally, severity which is the most controversial. There is a belief that the amount of pain inflicted on an individual should be proportionate to the crime committed. However, severity is risky because it can make the
While this is true that Canada no longer has the death penalty (Munroe, n.d.), and I agree that this could act as a deterrent, however I do not believe we should reintroduce capital punishment. According to Davies (2008), along with the morality issues behind capital punishment, research indicates there is racial and gender disparity when it comes to death penalty sentencing. Furthermore, this means that this penalty would not be equally distributed to those who commit crime across a population. Therefore it cannot act as a deterrent because in order to deter individuals from committing a crime there are three main components that affect deterrence. These components are celerity, certainty, and severity (Williams, 2013). Firstly celerity, the punishment needs to be given as close to the crime as possible and for the death penalty this is difficult to accomplish. Secondly, certainty is very important because everyone who commits a certain crime must receive the same punishment, but as stated by Davies (2008), we see that there are factors that have nothing to do with the crime that influence whether one will be sentenced to death. Finally, severity which is the most controversial. There is a belief that the amount of pain inflicted on an individual should be proportionate to the crime committed. However, severity is risky because it can make the