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> Society needs to have something between jaywalking and attempted murder.

there is already a lot of gradation in the spectrum of consequences: fines, probation, house arrest, weekend sentence (free to work during the week, but need check into jail each weekend), different security levels for different offenses. not much "rehabilitation" occurs anywhere along the spectrum, but it's not like you go straight from a small fine to 25 years in supermax.

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True, but where there’s less of a spectrum is in the stigma that follows you after the punishment. For many companies and landlords, anyone without a squeaky clean record is lumped together. Even for crimes that a significant portion of the population has probably committed at some point and were just never caught.

Almost all of those come with an arrest record which can stop you from getting a decent job.

Just because you can get 3 months for a felony charge, doesn't mean you'll ever be able to work again. We need a system to get rid of most criminal records after a certain amount of time

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