In dispensing criminal justice under criminal jurisprudence, there is what is called the principle of proportionality. According to this legal principle of proportionality, justice and fairness require that the offender be entitled only to the punishment of the crime committed which is based on the severity of the crime and the situation of the victim, the situation of the offender, the circumstances of the crime, etc. This is to say that there must be coordination and balance between crime and punishment in order to ensure justice.
Proportionality as a legal principle maintains that the punishment for a crime should be proportionate to the seriousness of the offense. In other words, the punishment should fit the crime and not be excessively harsh or lenient. There must be a balance as to the crime/punishment.
In dispensing of criminal justice, a tripartite justice is to be achieved; Justice for the state, Justice for the victim and surprisingly, Justice for the offender too. So this legal principle of proportionality advocates for justice for both the victim and the offender. If you over punish the offender, you have done the offender injustice and if you under punish the offender, you have done the state and the victim a great deal of injustice.
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The core words here under this principle are fit or balance; the punishment must “fit” the crime and/ or there must be a “balance” between crime and the punishment.
In order to achieve this proportionality, crimes or offenses have been grouped into two; capital crimes/offenses which attract capital punishments and misdemeanors which attract lesser punishments. For instance, the death sentence meted on a murderer has been deemed to be proportionate to the capital offence of murder committed by the offender; the same goes with the life sentence or long imprisonment term meted on a convicted rapist is said to be proportional to the offence of rape committed by the offender but death sentence cannot be meted on an offender whose offence is just stealing because the sentence of murder will not proportionate to the offence of stealing and the offender can appeal such sentence and ask for a lesser punishment which is equivalent to the offence he committed.
The basic reason criminal justice seeks to strike this balance of proportionality in dispensing justice is because when punishment is less than the crime committed by the offender the purpose of justice will not have been achieved because if a capital offender is punished by a mere slap on the wrist there won’t be deterrence, other prospective offenders may be motivated to commit such offense knowing that the reward outweighs the risk same goes if the punishment of the crime is higher than the crime committed, there won’t be justice as well.
