You completely FAIL to miss one or more of the aspects of incarceration:
Punishment: She gets to go to jail for her crime AGAINST SOCIETY. That she feels bad about it doesn’t matter.
Deterrance: Sending people to jail deters OTHERS from committing the same crime (or, to some, making the same “mistake”).
Correct..and my irritation is the fact charges were dropped, not that she should have been jailed as another poster erroneous assumed.
Originally, she was on house arrest since she had several other children. THAT I WAS OK WITH. But to drop the charges? NO, I’m not OK with that. House arrest or at least should have been the sentence.
There is a cost/benefit analysis to be done here. First the crime (or mistake) of carelessness in forgetting a child in a car seat is fairly uncommon and as reasnable people can tell you the unintentional death of a child is it’s own deterrent of a much larger magnitude than prison.
So the benefit to society in deterring other careless parents is minimal compared to the cost of incarcerating for deterrance purposes.
Prisons are pretty much overflowing already so taking up space with someone unlikely to re-offend, since their offense was unintentional in the first place is a waste of resources when there are plenty of intentional criminals who inflict violence on society on a regular basis and are highly likely to re-offend.
I’d rather keep a intentional and violent criminal in for longer than take up space with a non-violent airheaded accidental criminal.
The same argument can be made for the punishment aspect as well. Prison pales in comparison to the death of a child as it’s own punishment, so once again prison is an expensive additional punishment for an accidental offense where there are legions of intentional offenders daily harming society.
If the state is going to show mercy, I’d rather it be to the accidental criminal than the numerous rapists, pedophiles and cop killers they currently seem to favor.
“You completely FAIL to miss one or more of the aspects of incarceration:”
And you completely fail to know what the heck you are talking about.
“Punishment: She gets to go to jail for her crime AGAINST SOCIETY. “
If the prosecutor deems that appropriate. perhaps you prefer vigilantes.
“Deterrance: Sending people to jail deters OTHERS from committing the same crime (or, to some, making the same “mistake”).”
So sending her to jail for 3-5 years is more of a deterrent than the death of her child? Sounds like you are the one that FAILS.