For some purposes of sentencing, social context affects what is reasonably “necessary” and what I would count as “harm.” Society is the other participant in the sentencing exercise.
Suppose A thinks from first principles that five years was enough for SBF. In the context of the American system, that sentence would convey something about offense severity—and it would drastically understate it where a street dealer in illegal drugs might get the same sentence. So because of the background severity of sanctioning, the five-year sentence is inadequate to convey the appropriate degree of societal condemnation. If you think the social educative function of the criminal process is important, that’s a problem. A sentence that tells everyone in the US that what SBF did isn’t really that big a deal on the grand scheme of criminal activity would be quite harmful.
The social meaning also matters to the victims. Seeing the person who harmed you receive a penalty in line with their crimes mitigates the suffering of many victims; seeing them get off easy imposes additional suffering on others. And those victims are experiencing the sentence through the lens of what other offenders in their society receive.
But the main harm I had in mind is the harm to the norm that all are equal before the law and will be treated equally. Now, if I hand out below-norm sentences to all offenders, maybe that particular harm isn’t present. But those kinds of breaks are not equally distributed; we know that the system is harder on people of color, poor people, and other disadvantaged groups. Giving SBF too much of a break from what others with comparable culpability and harm receive gives the perception that the privileged are more favored before the law than the commoners. Or maybe the reality—some people have argued that the court should consider SBF’s loss of reputation and loss of massive earning capacity, which sounds a whole lot to me like taking his privilege into account. Avoiding that harm is more important to me than whether SBF spends a few extra years in prison.
(I should clarify that I think a sentence of more than 25 years was necessary and appropriate here on/near first principles, mainly for reasons described in the quick take linked to my comment. I should note that this case hits a lot of the aggravating factors I tend to weigh heavily, and I see no significant mitigating factors here at all.)
I think this changed my mind, but at least for me I was more persuaded by your first point. I momentarily forgot that I really believe that white collar crime should have huge deterrent punishments that take little regard to the personal circumstances of the defendant; that ultimately a large punishment for Sam would proportionally create much less future harm. And that that’s not inconsistent with desiring & working toward an end to the hellish US prison system.
For some purposes of sentencing, social context affects what is reasonably “necessary” and what I would count as “harm.” Society is the other participant in the sentencing exercise.
Suppose A thinks from first principles that five years was enough for SBF. In the context of the American system, that sentence would convey something about offense severity—and it would drastically understate it where a street dealer in illegal drugs might get the same sentence. So because of the background severity of sanctioning, the five-year sentence is inadequate to convey the appropriate degree of societal condemnation. If you think the social educative function of the criminal process is important, that’s a problem. A sentence that tells everyone in the US that what SBF did isn’t really that big a deal on the grand scheme of criminal activity would be quite harmful.
The social meaning also matters to the victims. Seeing the person who harmed you receive a penalty in line with their crimes mitigates the suffering of many victims; seeing them get off easy imposes additional suffering on others. And those victims are experiencing the sentence through the lens of what other offenders in their society receive.
But the main harm I had in mind is the harm to the norm that all are equal before the law and will be treated equally. Now, if I hand out below-norm sentences to all offenders, maybe that particular harm isn’t present. But those kinds of breaks are not equally distributed; we know that the system is harder on people of color, poor people, and other disadvantaged groups. Giving SBF too much of a break from what others with comparable culpability and harm receive gives the perception that the privileged are more favored before the law than the commoners. Or maybe the reality—some people have argued that the court should consider SBF’s loss of reputation and loss of massive earning capacity, which sounds a whole lot to me like taking his privilege into account. Avoiding that harm is more important to me than whether SBF spends a few extra years in prison.
(I should clarify that I think a sentence of more than 25 years was necessary and appropriate here on/near first principles, mainly for reasons described in the quick take linked to my comment. I should note that this case hits a lot of the aggravating factors I tend to weigh heavily, and I see no significant mitigating factors here at all.)
I think this changed my mind, but at least for me I was more persuaded by your first point. I momentarily forgot that I really believe that white collar crime should have huge deterrent punishments that take little regard to the personal circumstances of the defendant; that ultimately a large punishment for Sam would proportionally create much less future harm. And that that’s not inconsistent with desiring & working toward an end to the hellish US prison system.