Gary Provost - Into Their Own Hands

A few years ago in Bristol, Connecticut, two friends and I created the greatest plan in history for the correction of all social problems. And we werent even drinking. It was called The Bristol Plan, and it covered pretty much everything: the environment, elections, taxes, you name it. But perhaps the most provocative part of the plan was its criminal justice system.

Under The Bristol Plan there would be only two possible sentences for felonies:

Two years in prison.

Death by hanging.

The two-year sentence would be served by most offenders on their first conviction. Car thieves, shoplifters, unarmed burglars, extortionists, embezzlers, check forgers, drunk drivers, and corrupt politicians would be sent away for twenty-four months to reconsider the choices they had been making.

This prison would be unlike the prisons we know today. It would be a clean and well-lighted place, geared entirely toward rehabilitation. The two-year prisoner would wear street clothes, eat nutritious meals, learn new skills, get counseling, enjoy conjugal visits, and be supplied with Tony Robbins tapes. In other words, the prisoner would have every opportunity to reform. The cost of this two-year prison would be small, when measured against the billions we would save by no longer operating huge maximum-security fortresses. This two-year prison would probably be relatively easy to escape from, but we reckoned that escapes would be rare, inasmuch as the punishment for attempted escape would be death by hanging.

When the prisoner was released from a two-year prison he would be supported until he got a job, and we would help in that effort. If he didnt help himself, then, of course, we would hang him. In fact, we would do everything possible to get this person up and running again, a productive member of society. Once the prisoner had gone through a two-year sentence, there would be no conceivable excuse for his committing another crime.

The only other possible sentence for a felony under The Bristol Plan would be death by hanging. This sentence would be given on the first conviction to murderers, rapists, kidnappers, and anybody who carried a deadly weapon in the commission of a crime.

It seemed to us that giving these people five- and ten-year sentences was like burying atomic waste for five years and then dropping it into the nearest reservoir. Under this system we would use a lot of rope, but the recidivism rate would drop sharply.

The death sentence, by the way, would also go to attempted murderers. We didnt understand why attempted murder is treated as a lesser crime than murder. Clearly, the criminal who tries to kill is equally as dangerous to society as the one who does kill, though perhaps not as good a shot, so why should we reward incompetence with a lesser sentence?

The crimes punishable by two-year sentences would be divided into categories, depending on their severity. A person might commit a minor crime three times, and serve three two-year sentences, and be hanged for the fourth offense. Someone who committed a more severe crime might get a second two-year sentence, and hang for the third offense.

But sooner or later any series of felonies, no matter what the crime, would lead to the gallows. There would be no such thing as a fifth offense, and no such thing as a known career criminal. As we saw it, by the time a felon went through the two-year sentence a time or two, he would be so certain of the consequences of future crimes that committing another crime would be the equivalent of saying, Please hang me.

To commit a hanging crime would, in effect, be to commit suicide. It would be a death wish, and we would grant that wish within seventy-two hours of conviction. There would be no appeals process. It seemed silly to us to set up a justice system and then put in an appeals process which basically says the system cant be trusted to work properly.