You have probably heard at least once that some justice institutions around the world have sentenced someone to thousands of years in prison.
Recently, Faruk Fatih Özer, the CEO of one of Turkey's crypto exchanges, Thodex, was sentenced to 11,196 years, 10 months and 15 days in prison for fraud, leading a criminal organization and money laundering.
In 2016, Fethullah Gülen, leader of a social and religious movement and opponent of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was sentenced to 1,900 years in prison on charges of attempting to stage a coup. Six years later, Adnan Oktar (a cult leader), who was convicted of a number of crimes, including sexual assault, was sentenced to more than 8,600 years in prison.
In other countries, such punishments have been imposed. For example, in 2015, James Eagan Holmes was sentenced to 12 life sentences and another 3,318 years. He opened fire at a movie theater in Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others.
Charles Scott Robinson was sentenced to 30,000 years in prison in 1994 for six counts of child rape.
In Thailand, the wife of a high-ranking air force officer, Mae Chamoy Thipyaso was convicted of operating a pyramid scheme that defrauded some 16,000 people out of hundreds of millions of dollars collectively. In 1989, Thipyaso and her colleagues were sentenced to 141,078 years in prison.
These were just a few examples of thousands of years in prison. What is the purpose of punishing someone beyond the human lifespan? So why should someone be sentenced to hundreds or even thousands of years in prison when a "prison without parole" or "life imprisonment" would have the same effect?
"Each charge represents a victim," Rob McCallum, Public Information Officer for the Colorado Judicial Branch, previously explained.
Every charge against an accused criminal, especially a violent crime, represents a human being, and every life lost or person deceived or hurt deserves to be judged individually.
Sentencing laws vary around the world, but in institutions of justice where such punishments are applied, the rationale is related to the intent to include multiple crimes committed by the same person.
Indeed, punishment may seem strange, but it is a form of recognizing the injured parties.
