Sen­tenc­ing is hard.

I know, it’s an incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult line to toe; try­ing to bal­ance pub­lic safety, pub­lic opin­ion, vic­tims’ expec­ta­tions, deter­rence, reha­bil­i­ta­tion and equity. How much def­er­ence is due to any of those fac­tors? When politi­cians decide to get involved in the sen­tenc­ing, it mud­dies up the already murky pool.

There are some things, even among hard deci­sions, that should be no-brainers. If I were to ask you whether a con­victed crim­i­nal should get 5 or 15 years in prison, it’s not always an easy deci­sion to make. If I were to ask you if the leader of a vio­lent drug gang should receive a lighter or harsher sen­tence than a young woman who placed a 13-yr old boy’s hand on her “brasier-covered breast,” as Scott Green­field put it, that’s not such a hard decision.

One would think.

Yes, there is leg­is­la­tion that is in play. And yes, these are dif­fer­ent states. But this type of arbi­trary dis­par­ity occurs day in and day out.

I’m not offer­ing any solu­tions. I’m just point­ing out how bro­ken it is.