I’ve never understood that. How is serving sentences concurrently at all the same punishment? Are there cases where someone has two sentences that can be ruled either to serve consecutively or concurrently? Who makes that decision and what goes into it?
The idea is to make sure that there isn’t an unjust stacking of time due to many little crimes being committed during a larger crime. As an example, let’s say a first time offender breaks into a bank and tries to rob it. If they applied the maximum for each individual crime, it is easy for the punishment to balloon into something that is much worse than the crime itself calls for—trespassing + robbery + destruction of property + whatever else you did = 80+ years for a first time offense.
When the judge chooses to have the sentences run concurrently, the prisoner will serve the longest sentence they have gotten for one of the crimes, but will still have all the crimes on their record. This gives them a greater possibility to be released after a more reasonable amount of time (10-20 years), which gives them a chance of rehabilitation and reduces the burden on the taxpayer to house people for very long amounts of time.
It is worth remembering that some people who commit crimes early in life go on to be productive and admirable citizens. Stephen Fry did time for fraud as a teenager, and then went on to be a beloved actor and writer. Sometimes those skills can be turned around to do good.
I’ve never understood that. How is serving sentences concurrently at all the same punishment? Are there cases where someone has two sentences that can be ruled either to serve consecutively or concurrently? Who makes that decision and what goes into it?
The idea is to make sure that there isn’t an unjust stacking of time due to many little crimes being committed during a larger crime. As an example, let’s say a first time offender breaks into a bank and tries to rob it. If they applied the maximum for each individual crime, it is easy for the punishment to balloon into something that is much worse than the crime itself calls for—trespassing + robbery + destruction of property + whatever else you did = 80+ years for a first time offense.
When the judge chooses to have the sentences run concurrently, the prisoner will serve the longest sentence they have gotten for one of the crimes, but will still have all the crimes on their record. This gives them a greater possibility to be released after a more reasonable amount of time (10-20 years), which gives them a chance of rehabilitation and reduces the burden on the taxpayer to house people for very long amounts of time.
It is worth remembering that some people who commit crimes early in life go on to be productive and admirable citizens. Stephen Fry did time for fraud as a teenager, and then went on to be a beloved actor and writer. Sometimes those skills can be turned around to do good.