Should our criminal justice system be more punitive or rehabilitative? Why?

The Canadian criminal justice system has a conviction rate of 62%, but excluding deals and guilty pleas and deals, its drops down to 50%. Based on the charges and the court procedures seen when going to the Surrey provincial court, the system is already rehabilitative enough. A man named Abraham shot someone with a semi-automatic gun, didn’t report anything, almost killed the victim but failed, then tried to hide the gun and threatened the victim to not tell anyone about the encounter, otherwise there would be problems. He was only sentenced to 4 years in jail without parole, but only 2 years would be written on his criminal record in hopes of not deteriorating his life too much. He did not give any reason as to why he committed that aggravated assault. Another guy who had rage problems tackled a woman that lived across from him, who came over to his apartment. He strangled her while allegedly holding a handgun, but ultimately let her run away after she knocked the gun out of his hand and kicked him off enough for her to escape. They both tried reaching for the gun, but neither could get it while holding the other away from it. The man was only sentenced to 18 months of parole (reporting what he’s done throughout the day to any parole officer whether it’s his officer or not, but preferably his own, there is no curfew with the parole, and an ankle bracelet on him for the first few weeks of the parole). The final part of the sentence though, was more consistent anger management rehabilitation and therapy, paid for by the government. The main reason for only parole and no jail time for that simple assault is because the judge thought that the defense felt remorseful by moving a block away from her after the incident, going to anger management therapy (despite already receiving therapy before the incident), and sending her a letter apologizing for the incident. The person being charged didn’t say a word throughout the entire crime or trial, and only nodded to agree to his charges and that he understood what was going on.

I feel as though the system is far too rehabilitative and should be more punitive. The sentences for things should be higher. Crimes that happen are accused of being not as bad as they really are to convince the defense to cooperate, agree to the charges, and make sure that there is a conviction with a sentence. Crowns should be able to dig into evidence more, and be able to charge people with crimes closer to what they actually committed.

“Conviction Rate.” Wikipedia, 19 Oct. 2024. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conviction_rate&oldid=1252133021.

Core Competencies Self Assessment

Critical and Reflective Thinking

I can analyze evidence of a case to determine what needs to be done and what the restrictions are. I’m able to build evidence and claims off each other to uncover the inconsistency that lets me ascertain the real and important evidence from the fake and irrelevant evidence. I can and have shown the ability to narrow down the important details enough to evaluate the problem at point blank to ensure a fitting judgement has been made in relatively close ties to the Canadian criminal code.