Explain how the law serves to protect offenders

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

One way this occurs is via the prevention of vigilantism. Having a formal system of criminal laws helps ensure that the state seeks justice, rather than private individuals seeking justice. The criminal law thus protects offenders from the threat of victims coming after them. The criminal law also protects offenders by ensuring proportionate and non-arbitrary punishment. They also spell out the range of acceptable punishments, ensuring at least some protection against wildly differing sentences between offenders. There are still examples of unequal treatment that persist, especially as pertain to racial and ethnic disparities in criminal justice, but the criminal law at least helps to ensure a measure of equal treatment. Offenders also benefit from elaborate procedural protections, including the right to counsel, the right to a speedy trial, the right to an impartial jury trial, the right to a public trial, the right to confrontation, the right to compulsory process, and so on. These protections, however, stem more from the rules of criminal procedure—and particularly the U.S. Constitution—than they do from the criminal law.