The fact that other people who commit less serious crimes get harsher sentences doesn’t necessarily mean Manafort’s sentence was not harsh enough.

Manafort, only one of the many criminals in Trump’s circle, was sentenced to only 47 months in jail by a conservative judge who went way below the sentencing guidelines. Manafort still has another sentencing hearing coming up with another judge who can slap more time onto the end of that sentence, so he’s probably going to die in jail one way or another.

But let’s use this time to talk about sentences in America. I don’t think Manafort’s sentence is too lenient. I think most other sentences are too harsh.

We put too many people in jail for too long in America, and especially for nonviolent crimes. America has more people in jail than any other country, including countries that are run by dictators. It costs us a huge amount of money (that the for-profit jails love) and doesn’t prevent recidivism.

There are other options. Home monitoring, community service, long periods of supervised probation.

Somehow the rest of the world seems to understand this.

Sentences for nonviolent crimes should have less prison time. Manafort’s sentence should be the norm instead of the aberration.