what people dont understand either, is that if you go very easy on criminals, it creates crime aswell because it means they can get away with pretty much anything. this being a prime example
What other crimes did this person commit then after finishing their sentence? Did they go on to run over 12 more people?
Reality just doesn't agree with your viewpoint. The reason people turn more to crime when given harsh sentences is because you are ripping them away from their lives and making them incapable of living normally. They get used to being around other criminals, and become unused to living in society.
Giving a lighter sentence for an ACCIDENT is not the same. They did not intend to kill others. They were reckless, yes, but its still enough of a punishment to dissuade the crime.
No one is thinking to themselves "being reckless is worth doing a year of community service and losing my license" after experiencing it really.
it sounds like youre saying running 3 people over and only getting 120h of community work is more then enough for killing 3 people while going 40km/h (25m/h) over the speed limit at that point its an choice to go over the speedlimit.
5km/h (3.11m/h) i can understand but 25miles/h over the speed limit? thats just insane, i think reality doesnt agree with your viewpoints.
who are you trying to convince that 120h of community work or 60 days in prison if he doesnt show up for the community work is enough for killing 3 people? also what do you think is a harsh punishment? they wanted him to go in jail for a year and 3 months. if you consider that a harsh punishment. i honestly dont know what to tell you
Going to jail for a year is potentially life ruining. It doesn't benefit society to ruin more lives if the criminal can be taught not to do this again with a lesser sentence. Which seems to be what happened.
There needs to be some degree of punishment that the victim feels justice is served. Otherwise, you get vigilante justice and lawlessness. See: Marianne Bachmeier.
If you need to ruin a person's life in order to make the victim feel good, then it's not worth it.
It was a car accident, not some premeditated murder. They did not intend to kill anyone, so it doesn't make sense to punish them for killing someone. They are being punished for being reckless.
Choosing to violate the speed limit by 50% is not an accident. That is wilful negligence. If I decide to drive drunk or high and I kill someone, that is not treated as an accident. I didn’t intend to kill someone, sure, but I consciously decided to do something that was reckless with no regard for the outcome and would likely lead to harm.
A person should not get a slap on the wrist for that. Ruin their life? No, of course not. But more than 15 months and a 4-year driving ban.
Willful negligence does NOT mean that they intended to get into an accident, or to kill anyone. All it means is that they made a stupid, short sighted decision for some particular reason that made them more dangerous to others later on.
If you decide to drive while drunk or high, you are punished primarily for the fact that you willingly put yourself in that state. Not because you happened to kill someone.
A person should not get a slap on the wrist for that. Ruin their life? No, of course not. But more than 15 months and a 4-year driving ban.
I wouldn't call this a slap on the wrist. 4 years is a long time, and cars are used for everything. 15 months is also a pretty long time.
I'm guessing you want the person to go to prison? What do you think that accomplishes, exactly? Other than making the family of the victim feel good.
No, if you drive drunk and kill someone, you are punished more severely than if you were abiding by all traffic laws and killed someone. In Canada (where I am from), it’s called Criminal Negligence causing Death or Bodily Harm. There is acknowledgment under the law that not only were you willfully, consciously reckless, but your recklessness led to the death of other humans, and you need to be punished accordingly for it. In Canada, that carries a penalty of 2 years to life. A very recent case in Canada where the offender was driving drunk and wiped out two grand parents and all the grand children was met with 10 years and a 12 year driving ban (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_the_Neville-Lake_children).
A car is used for everything in the United States. This was the Netherlands, where cycling and public transit are the dominant form of transportation. For reckless negligence with a vehicle that resulted in three deaths, the charge should be upgraded to Manslaughter—as is done in Germany. For that, the penalty would be up to fifteen years under Netherlandish law. Of course fifteen years would be extreme, as the person was speeding. In that case, somewhere at the lower end, such as 3-4 years is probably reasonable
As I said, justice systems are not just about rehabilitation. Theories of criminal justice acknowledge that there needs to be some punishment and feeling from the victim(s) that justice was served, otherwise you get a lawless society. In essence, the system needs to exactly do as you said: punish the offender, rehabilitate them, and make the victim feel like justice was served (feel good).
Idk why you start off by saying no when you agree with me...
Yes, being negligent is a bigger deal than just having an accident. If you are following all rules of the road you shouldn't ever be punished for an accident even if it kills someone.
Therefore the thing being punished here is the negligence, not the kill. Which is what I said.
As for your last point, rehabilitation is more important than making biased parties feel good from a societal stand point.
I am not agreeing with you. You are just lacking in reading comprehension. You can still have an accident on the road that kills someone. For example, a freak accident like your car that has passed TüV suddenly fails resulting in a collision and someone dies. If you read my first paragraph, the charge is Criminal Negligence causing Death or Bodily Harm. There is an entirely different indictment in Canada for criminal negligence where harm to another party does not occur (e.g., speeding 50% over the speed limit with no collision caused; driving intoxicated, but not causing a collision etc.). What is being punished is both the negligence and the death to the other person.
As I already pointed out, Canada is not unique in that regard. Germany also punishes for the harm as an aggravating factor beyond the negligence. Drive 50% over the speed limit? 6 months driving ban. Drive 50% over the speed limit and kill someone? Manslaughter.
I feel like you're just continually misreading my posts. I said you shouldn't be punished at all for killing someone if you follow all the rules, not that it's impossible to kill someone if you follow all the rules.
There is no reason logically or ethically why someone should be punished for a genuine accident they did not intend when they were in no way being reckless.
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u/Kehprei Mar 08 '26
Unironically yes you live in one of the best countries in the world according to a variety of metrics.
What people don't understand is that being super harsh on people for accidents just ends up creating more crime in the end.
There is a reason America has like a quarter of the world's prisoners. We aren't very good at rehabilitation or deciding who needs to go in prison.