Crime, Its Cause and Treatment

Assuming that man is justified in fixing the moral worth of his fellow; that he is justified in punishment for the purpose of making the offender suffer; and that these punishments according to the degree of severity will in some way pay for or make good the criminal act or protect or help society or prevent crime or even help the offender or someone else, what finally is the correct basis of fixing penalties?

No science, experience, or philosophy and very little humanity has ever been considered in fixing punishments. The ordinary penalties are first: fines, which generally penalize someone else more than the victim; these with the poor mean depriving families and friends of sorely needed money, and the direct and indirect consequences are sometimes small and sometimes very great. These can be readily imagined. If instead of fines a prison sentence is given, a sort of decimal system has been worked out by chance or laziness or symmetry of figures; certainly it has been done wholly regardless of science, for there is no chance to apply science when it comes to degrading men and taking away a portion of their lives. Generally ten days is the shortest. From this the court goes to twenty, then thirty, then sixty, then three months, then six months, then one year.