Should unsuccessful crime be punished less severely than successful crime?

Attempted murder is not the same as murder, even though it was the intention. Sometime ineptitude is rewarded.

Attempted murder is much more serious than attempted robbery for example! So .. the punishment for not “succeeding” should be different in both cases.

The intent and the perpetrator’s propensity for criminal activity is still punishable no matter how inept they are.

I think a lot goes into the charges. Attempted murder can hold charges for firearm possession, intent of harm and so on. Its rarely just one charge. Also endangering others around you can also be added. Lets say you fire your weapon at an adult but a child is near, than you get child endangerment added.
Of course there is also the consideration of whether you did it out of rage, or if you were out of your mind, or if you are a danger to society or just one person who you have a history with. Also of course if you have a record all ready.
I don’t think the law is always so clear. But of course premeditation is always a hard thing to prove unless you went around announcing what you were going to do or its something like I bought the gun and my first stop was going by my victims house and shooting them. Then it becomes pretty clear.
Of course in things like rape, you can’t claim you just accidently had sex. But you can claim that the victim was willing and so it wasn’t rape. Attempted rape is really hard to prove unless there were witnesses or a camera. Unless there is some bruising all you can claim is assault. But then again your lawyer can spin it that the victim liked a little rough play and called it off an the guy just stopped like she asked. I don’t think ineptitude gets rewarded as much as a good lawyer can spin a good tale and proof is hard to come by.

There is no punishment for successful crime unless guilt makes the perpetrator turn himself
in. Successful crime means not getting caught.

So, unsuccessful criminals should get the book thrown at them.

I think that things are just fine the way they are.

I certainly understand what you’re getting at here, but we have criminal justice system where people are not punished or held accountable for something they didn’t actually do. If, for whatever reasons, someone’s attempts to rob or murder someone did not result in an actual robbery or murder then people cannot be tried and/or convicted for robbery or murder, because those crimes didn’t actually occur. People are not exactly being rewarded for having failed or for simply being incompetent, or even for just being lucky that their victim managed to survive or avoid being fully victimized even, if the actor fully intended to carry the act to it’s conclusion. If a murder is not actually committed, then a person cannot be guilty of committing a murder. It’s pretty straight forward.

And, like @marinelife, I’m find with it. I don’t see what other options there are.

I’ve thought about this quite a bit in the past, and I do see your point. If someone meant to kill me, but was a lousy shot, why should he escape harsher punishment due to his own ineptitude? But the alternative is worse. It could lead to thought crime and such. I’m ok with the way it is.

My gut instinct says no. If the intent was there (to rob, murder, rape etc) then that is what tells me that a person is a threat to society not whether they were succesful in their plans or not.

In my opinion, no. If there was malicious intent to commit a crime than the person should be still receive the same punishment. There are too many repeat offenders out there for letting things like that skate by.