Question 1. The murderer should not be given a community sentence. This is because he killed intentionally, and murderers should be sentenced in prison. Also, he might end up killing other people in the community. Since the murderer experienced many years of abuse, he might have developed psychological traumas that made him lack emotions and empathy. Lack of empathy and anger has been linked to why most murderers kill (Hall et al., 2016). It develops when one is physically and emotionally abused by people who should instead protect them. Therefore, if this particular murderer is put on community probation, he might continue to kill. He killed his victim due to abuse in their relationship.
Consequently, the murderer will fear loving again. Secondly, by putting him in a community sentence, he will interact with people and possibly develop affections, and he will probably kill a person he would develop feelings for. According to Garbarino (2015), by killing a person they want before going into contact with them, murderers may come to feel that they will eradicate the terrifying likelihood of being left behind, embarrassed, or otherwise harmed by someone they love like they were in former relationships.
Question 2. The college student should be put in a community sentence. This is because he didn’t intend to kills, but it happened through an accident. The student is a first time offender. An individual appointed as a first offender offers a more lenient punishment than someone whose criminal background is more extensive.
In most cases, if a person commits a crime for the first time, it becomes a mitigating factor for judges to give a lenient sentence (Monahan & Skeem, 2016). This form of community sentence shames and offender and is meant to punish the offender and to stop him/her from committing such a crime or any other offense in the future (Wolf & Blackwood, 2019). In this case, putting the college student under community punishment is more lenient than being sentenced in jail. Secondly, putting him in community punishment is okay, considering that he is still a student. This will allow the offender to continue with his education, unlike in jail, where his education progress would be put in jeopardy.