I watch a ton of documentaries, as well as shows like "Inside The World's Toughest Prisons" and it always amazes me how diverse sentencing can be - both across countries and even within the same. And that's just for normal sentencing, not the drastic variations handed out by juries or judges within the same country for the same crime.
It can be something like first degree murder of 5-10 years in one country to death in another. Murder penalty of 10 years and something like shoplifting penalty of 15 years in the same country. There are places where you can go to jail for smoking weed and do more time than if you raped or killed somebody.
I could not agree more with you. Its like the sentence is a random number generator. GF watches a ton of real life crime stuff and its shocking how much difference in sentences there can be. One episode a gang member got in a fight and shot someone and got 40 years. Very next episode a meth guy with a history of domestic violence stalked and killed his ex-gf. He got 6 years and was out in 2!
So many factors have a huge influence on the sentence:
- Hanging judge vs bleeding heart
- Mandatory sentencing or not
- Good/bad lawyer
- Strength of case evidence for plea bargains
- Prosecuting atty lazy or aggressive
All these things can be like a factor of +/- 50% to the sentence. So its no wonder there's variance. To some extent you WANT that variance, so a wise judge can make the punishment fit the crime, but it also leads to some bizarre outcomes.