The Elkhart Four case has become a cause celebre and gathered national attention. In 2012, Jose Quiroz, Levi Sparks, Anthony Sharp, and Blake Layman were charged with felony murder. This all happened after they decided to break into an Elkhart house and had their accomplice, twenty-one-year-old Danzele Johnson, shot and killed by the homeowner (Brown et al., 2016). All four men, except for Sharp, were teenagers at the time of being arrested, but all were charged as adults and given no less than fifty years in prison each (Effron & Hawkins, 2015). This injustice made their mothers act and fight for their sons’ freedom, and after a long appeals process, in 2016, they were re-sentenced, and Levi Sparks was released on January 28.
There are several theories that explain why people may conduct crimes and how they should be punished for them. According to deterrence theories, each person has free will and has to decide whether to commit an action after weighing the costs and the benefits (Quackenbush & Zagare, 2016). If his or her actions hurt other people, such an individual has to be severely punished, and precisely the inevitability and seriousness of punishment can reduce crime. Using this theory, it is possible to suggest that the fifty-year sentence of the Elkhart four was justified since it was swift, severe, and certain and had to punish them for hurting others.
However, modern-day classical school theories like rational choice may be applied in order to prove that such a sentence was not justified. The rational choice theory recognizes informal controls, including the influence of family, peers, and other circumstances, as an argument for reducing crime (Amadae, 2017). Probably one of the Elkhart four (including the murdered Danzele Johnson) was an influencer who spoiled his friends and made them want to go for a burglary. Considering that they were teenagers, and their motivation is not evident, such a factor needs to be taken into account. Burglary but not murder was their crime, and sentencing them to fifty years in prison is not justified and mercifully. Finding the influencer and removing him from the group may have prevented the crime.
References
Amadae, S. M. (2017). Rational choice theory. Encyclopædia Britannica. Web.
Brown, J., Effron, L., & Hawkins, S. (2016). Indiana man, 21, who was sentenced to 50 years in prison in ‘Elkhart 4’ controversial felony murder case, enjoys freedom. ABC News. Web.
Effron, L., & Hawkins, S. (2015). Three of ‘Elkhart 4’ have felony murder conviction reversed. ABC News. Web.
Quackenbush, S. L., & Zagare, F. C. (2016). Modern deterrence theory: Research trends, policy debates, and methodological controversies. Oxford Handbooks Online. Web.