Affluenza Punishment

Affluenza Punishment

Heinous crimes need punishments. In our current judicial system, the wealth of defendants often allows for lesser sentences for crimes. Be it because a real sentence will cause too much strain on the criminal or because someone was not told "no" enough times as a kid, wealthy people are getting off with little to no punishment. This epidemic is often referred to as "affluenza," a "disease of the rich that makes them unable to understand the consequences of their behavior," but it is not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the psychology book that lists all mental disorders, which pretty much means that it is not real: it is a made–up disease (Szalavitz). "Affluenza" is something people use to describe what rich kids "have" if their parents ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...Ethan Couch of 2013, the Texas teenager who drove drunk and killed four people and injured nine others, the "affluenza" defense was finally named as such. Ethan Couch was sixteen in 2013, the time of the incident. He was allowed to stay unsupervised at his parents' second home with his friends where he decided to steal beer and become highly intoxicated. Late into the festivities, Ethan drove his seven friends to a convenience store very erratically, speeding up to 70 mph. He wound up at the site of another accident when he lost control of his truck and wound up killing four bystanders and causing paralysis to a passenger of his truck (Klass). When it came time for the trial, he admitted guilt. However, he was not going to accept the consequences. His "powerhouse legal team" called psychologist Dr. G Dick Miller to the stand where he used the now famous term "affluenza" to explain why Couch did what he did. According to Miller, Couch grew up in a wealthy lifestyle and had virtually no consequences for his actions and thus was not expected to know that driving under the influence (and under age) was prohibited by law (Klass). The prosecution for the case advocated that Couch serve 20 years in prison, which was admittedly less than he deserved. However, he only received ten years' probation and a court required stint in a fancy rehabilitation center in California (Szalavitz). The judge gave him quite a lenient sentence for killing four people. It would be hard to deny that the "affluenza" claim by the defense did not somehow influence the sentencing, but either way, it is despicable. The Couch family had the best lawyers for their son and that wealth spurred the claim that none of it was his fault. Couch got away with killing four people simply because he was a wealthy teenager with fancy lawyers who said that his parents were to blame and not him, even though he was the one

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