I'd like to see property criminals do fairly long sentences involving labour - the very thing they're thieving to avoid. But it's a lot more complicated than that.
When I was a cop, my home was burglarized and a couple of handguns were stolen. To shorten a long story, being a cop helped to string the whole story together. He had also B&E'd several other people in my complex, working his way from the top to the bottom floors. I found this out after the fact, talking with my neighbors. The investigating cop hadn't even bothered to follow up on one of my bags found in one of the other units - his MO was to take a bag to put the stolen items in, then grab a bigger bag in the next unit to hold even more stuff. My discarded bag had my address on it - in the same complex. The cop didn't even bother to follow up with that address in the same unit... professional stupidity at its finest.
Anyways, the B&E boys just happened to be talking in the office one day about this habitual offender they had just taken down. I put two and two together and then I had the identity of the guy who did my place. They have him for over 300 B&E's; the deal is he is going to plead guilty to five - now six now that I am there raising hell - in exchange for identifying all the B&Es he has done they can't tie him to. He gets clear of possible future prosecution for those B&E's, they get to close a whole bunch of outstanding files they could probably never solve by evidence and charge. The reality of police business as usual where you have five cops dealing with a volume of work that realistically should have thirty cops assigned to deal with.
Approached the prosecutor as a victim, said I wanted to submit a victim impact statement and ask for a restitution order. Victim impact statements invariably result in longer sentences - so ask why prosecutors don't aggressively seek them from victims. "Oh, okay, we'll do that". Nothing heard after that, so I started watching the court lists. My guy comes up for his trial and I haven't heard from the prosecutor. Call them up again "Oh right, yeah, okay...". Still nothing heard, so I took matters into my own hands.
I ran off his record. The ultimate serial criminal. About fifteen years of crime, starting almost immediately after his adult birthday, which tells you he was a juvie criminal as well (which you can't see). Conviction, sentence, probation, violation of probation, conviction, sentence, jail, parole, offence, conviction, sentence, violation of parole, etc. Fifteen years with the only breaks in committing crimes being the times he is actually in a jail.
So off to the courthouse I go with his record in my hand - something an ordinary citizen would never see, never mind be allowed to have in their hands. Buddy comes in, the prosecutor and the defense make a joint submission to the judge saying buddy is going to plead guilty to six B&Es, and a sentence of two years that includes a drug treatment plan is appropriate. So here's the judge looking at this deal, and even if he did know that buddy had also committed those other 294 B&Es, he can't take judicial notice of what the lawyers as officers of the court haven't put in front of him. Two years won't even have him doing federal time.
So I stand up and interrupt the court and tell the judge I am a victim and I want to make a victim impact statement. In fact, I have repeatedly told the prosecutor that I wanted to make a victim impact statement but he has never got back to me. The prosecutor doesn't look happy with me. The defense doesn't look happy with me. But the judge says yes, as you would expect.
I give the judge a brief outline of what had happened, how many B&Es this guy actually committed, how many victims, etc, aside from the six that have come up at trial. Then I start reading the judge his record. The defense freaks out, says the judge should not be hearing this and I should have never gotten access to buddy's criminal record. I point out my unstated job allows me to see these records. The judge says it is a victim impact statement so I can say almost anything I want.
To shorten a long story, instead of a two year sentence in a nice little minimum security jail, he got 14 years in a federal pen. And I got a restitution order. He absolutely freaked out at that - had never gotten more than 18 months for any and all of his convictions before that. I kind of enjoyed that - and I made a point of telling him I would be seeing him around when he got out as he was led away.
And then I made a complaint to the prosecutor's boss, complete with the evidence of the numerous times I had asked to do a victim impact statement, in a time when policy was to aggressively pursue obtaining getting those statements. And hounded that complaint every step of the way. I don't recall them getting fired, but I'm sure it made their life hell for a few months.
He got paroled after 11 years. Again, despite the fact I had stayed in touch with Corrections and ensured they had a note on my file to advise me when he was released, nobody contacted me to tell me he was now out where I could attempt to serve the restitution order. Found out because I kept track of him; if I hadn't been in the business, I would have never found out.
Turned out he had been placed in a job as a labourer, had used his pen money and first paycheque or so to buy a car to commute to work. Made an appointment with his parole officer, showed her a copy of the restitution order, and asked her how she intended to have him pay it. She said she wouldn't do that - it would be too damaging to his psyche to have to pay it while attempting a clean start. Yes, she really did say that. I pointed out she was an officer of the court and it was a court order, and therefore she was obligated to enforce it as he was under her jurisdiction. She said she didn't care.
So, being in the business and knowing a bit about how the law works, I went and got another court order. Tracked down where he was working. Had the bailiff's seize his car at the worksite as well as serve his employer with an order to garnishee his wages. I made sure I was there so I could smirk and say "remember me" when he came running up to find out why the tow truck was putting the hook on his car.
So, it took about a decade, but I finally got justice and restitution for the burglary and theft of my handguns.
I told the long story to address the issue of who is to blame for creatures like this running around free to victimize more people.
Is it the cops who don't do a full and proper investigation of crimes? Well, it was a lousy investigation, but as a cop at the time I know that I usually went on shift backed up on seven or eight calls before I even stuck the keys in the ignition. Getting an ident man to a B&E scene was a joke, they were about as scarce as unicorns - had to be a really serious crime to get ident man time. Nobody wants to hire and pay for more cops and more resources until they're the victims. They want to make jokes about cops and doughnut shops instead, not bothering to discuss the reason you're eating in the crappy doughnut shop together is because there aren't enough cops to relieve you for lunch so you can go back to the office to eat and discuss cases with the other cops in your area.
How about the cops who give buddy immunity on hundreds of other crimes in exchange for confessing to six? Well, they can't even begin to keep up with their case load and would never have even cleared all those hundreds of others anyways because they don't have time to investigate properly. Go ahead and be the section NCO who asks for a couple of dozen additional cops to add to the few you already have - be prepared to have the chief laugh in your face and ask you what kind of meds you're on.
Well then, it must be the prosecutors cutting the deals, who don't put in the time and legwork to get victim impact statements. Well, most of those prosecutors are relatively new guys out of law school who are being paid less by the state than a tradesman makes. The defense lawyer usually did the prosecutor job before they got burned out and gave up, so they know how the prosecutor works. So there's the prosecutor with about eighty files sitting on his desk. He's going to read the paperwork, but for a B&E is going to have maybe five minutes with the cops and witnesses before the trial starts.
... to be continued...