In 2003, there was a case where a girl was killed by a person who was high on drugs. He first kidnapped her and killed her after two months. In this reform, the child’s father came up on television telling about the injustice faced by his family. After five years of this incident, murderer was released. He told about the different type of sentencing laws being implemented by the government, where a person committing a small crime like robbery, Bulgary is also imprisoned for five years, but if a person kills someone he is not hanged or strictly punished (Mears, Cochran & Cullen, 2015). The case also discussed the drug laws which were observed at that time. The case tells that a person was charged with selling illegal drugs to a neighbor, but not charged with sexually harassing or raping.
However, sentencing in this regard has been very different, which causes a problem for the innocent people. A person who is found selling illegal drugs publicly was imprisoned for at least 60 months (Ashworth, 2010). But, a murderer who kills an innocent child is charged for a lifetime but comes out of the jail at the same time as other criminal punishments. The case says that there should be different laws for different crimes. It makes the people think that every crime is equal, whether it is a drug issue or a murder (Ashworth, 2010). In simple terms, sentencing acts have never made efforts to resolve it or make any other “get tough” policies, as the matter is of great importance.
The sentencing act should be revised in such a way, that there are different policies and description of every crime which is not equal to other crimes. For example, a person committing a murder should be hanged to death instead of five-year imprisonment. A person sexually harassing a woman should be heavily charged and included in the sentencing guidelines.
References
Ashworth, A. (2010). Sentencing and criminal justice. Cambridge University Press.
Mears, D. P., Cochran, J. C., & Cullen, F. T. (2015). Incarceration heterogeneity and its implications for assessing the effectiveness of imprisonment on recidivism. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 26(7), 691-712.
