The Stakes Could Not Be Higher: Who To Imprison, Release, and Institutionalize
Three Cases Raise Significant Problems
In the pursuit of building safer societies, the ability to predict and prevent crime is essential. While no precogs exist, it seems plausible that societies can implement policies which reduce the likelihood of crimes being committed or that these measures mitigate their effects*. One branch of criminal justice deals with determining whether a formerly offending individual is likely to reoffend. This measure is usually called recidivism. Criminal justice professionals routinely decide how to sentence individuals, whether to charge them, release them early, and more. The systems and structures involved in these important determinations were designed before we knew what we know now. Further, human behavior is incredibly complex and hard to get right.
Recent research has called into question aspects of the criminal justice system. For example, Shai Dazinger’s work shows that decisions are not solely rational (2011). The researchers found that Judge days have three work windows divided by two food breaks. When a work period commences they give favorable rulings in about 65% of the cases, which continuously drops to near 0% as a work period nears its ending, suggesting the possibility that, the more tired or hungry they grow, the less likely they are to give favourable rulings. In this week’s edition, we explore three people who committed a crime or were presumably dangerous and the decisions made to release, or imprison them.
Are systems failing? The Case of Valdo Calocane
Among the most recent tragedies in the field of crime prevention is the case of Valdo Calocane in June of 2023. At 32 years old, Calocane was a student of the University of Nottingham who stabbed two 19 year-olds and a 65 year old man to death, and later injured two other citizens by driving a van into them. Calocane had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia four years earlier. He had also been detained four times in a two year span, and had been dubiously cleared from being treated.
Many commentators, including the victim’s and Calocane’s families, agree that this was a preventable occurrence. Calocane had also exhibited concerning behaviors such as refusal to take medicine, violent outbursts against other people and persistent psychosis. In spite of these, he was discharged from care in September of 2022, after not showing up to his mandatory interview. The Health Secretary has highlighted that this was shocking because such absences “should have provoked closer supervision”, as opposed to his release from care.
Can a criminal be reformed? The Case of Steven Van de Velde
A few months back, we covered the interesting and highly controversial decision of letting a convicted rapist compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics. The man in question was Steven Van de Velde, a Dutch beach voley-ball player who, in 2019, was arrested and convicted in the UK for the statutory rape of a 12 year old girl.
In a previous article, we explored the controversy surrounding this case. Van de Velde fulfilled his sentence, and upon evaluation by a panel of experts, including psychologists and other professionals, it was determined that he was unlikely to reoffend. He is now married and has a young child.
Other factors played into his case, which served as attenuating circumstances, such as his acquittal of grooming, and the fact that in the Dutch law system had different guidelines for sentencing this crime. We think this case raised many questions about judicial systems and the extent to which people who have served their time should be welcomed back into society.
How to deal with Reoffenders: The Case of Mark Jones
The case of Mark Jones is fascinating for those interested in the field. A young man from a loving family enlists in the military school at West Point. There, he claimed to have suffered a traumatic hazing incident which led to him being discharged from the school. Jones suffered from PTSD, bipolar disorder and alcoholism and turned to petty crimes and public disturbances. He eventually got convicted for grand theft after stealing a drill from Home Depot.
After being released, Jones went back to abusing alcohol until one day, while drunk, he approached a woman in the street, grabbed her arm and demanded her car keys. The woman screamed in fear and he walked away. He was arrested, and since he had been released just three years prior, the Judge enacted the Prisoner Releasee Reoffender Statute, which allowed him to give Jones a longer sentence.
Mark Jones was convicted for life, for attempted carjacking.
Upon hearing the news, the victim of his crime filed a complaint to the Judge, as she found the verdict to be unjust and excessive. Ten years later, Mark Jones is still serving his life sentence and has been denied various appeals. He has thoroughly expressed his remorse and now works as a law clerk from the prison’s library where he helps other inmates file their appeals.
Time to Reconsider
The three cases we have reviewed this week highlight different aspects of the justice system and raise important questions.
The case of Calocane is disheartening and at first sight, an indictment of British health services and criminal justice procedures. However, when evaluating systems and structures, it is vital to examine a group of cases rather than a single one. Such an investigation could begin by asking how many institutionalized people would not commit any such acts if they were released. This analysis should also consider how many patients with a similar profile to Calocane have been institutionalized/released and out of those released, how many have engaged in illegal or violent activities? While this case is undoubtedly a tragedy, no system can ever perfectly determine whether a person with certain traits and diagnoses will commit a crime. How should societies balance these individuals' freedoms with the need to protect the public?
Van de Velde’s participation in the Olympics drew widespread condemnation. We found that most of the indignation was directed at him rather than the systems and structures involved in his case. We argued that the case raises questions about sentencing guidelines and procedures, and that these are also worth exploring in depth. Van de Velde confessed, was sentenced, and served time. He was assessed by specialists, was open about his past, and returned to playing volleyball. He got married and had a kid. It seems that he has not reoffended. Did the system work this time? One could question whether a system can be said to be working if it doles out three year sentences to people who have sex with twelve year olds. Again, we find the policy decisions need to be made by looking at groups of individuals rather than single cases.
Certain systems are designed to reduce recidivism under the premise that offenders who reoffend are likely to keep offending. In the case of Jones, the application of a recidivist statute seems excessive. This case may offend a viewer's sense of justice much like Van de Velde’s short prison sentence. In a recent documentary, PBS interviews Mark Jones to explain his case and the use of the Prisoner Releasee Reoffender Statute on similar cases, in which for relatively minor offences, recidivists are punished with the harshest sentences. This simply calls into question the severity of the sentences, and how often these statutes are invoked.
The rational school of criminology had argued that people are rational, and thus, they choose to commit crimes. This may not be the case. In this article, we raised some questions about the other side of the equation… What if criminal justice systems fail to be rational? The Positivist school which followed argued that crime had causes and thus societies could reduce crime by addressing those.
We are also troubled by Danzinger’s findings. How can we find a system to be just, if outcomes are inconsistent. A system where the very same prisoner’s petition may have been accepted if the judge had only read it after his lunch break instead of before, is a system in crisis. We do not know how to solve this.
*In the film Minority Report precogs are special beings who can predict who will commit a crime just before they do it. Thus giving the authorities time to stop all crimes.
The ideas of moral responsibility and retributive justice are at the heart of criminal justice and sentencing, as well as people's moral evaluations. In the case of van de Velde, people are presumably mad because they believe that the punishment was not proportional to the crime, the principle of retributive justice. A group of philosophers, whom I discuss in the essay below, however, believes that moral responsibility and retributive justice are indefensible and harmful ideas. They would say that, since van de Velde stopped offending, the criminal justice system worked. https://open.substack.com/pub/eclecticinquiries/p/against-moral-responsibility-and?r=4952v2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false