Contempt of court is not a victimless crime. Nobody gets sent to jail just for being disrespectful--they get held in contempt for disrupting the process other people rely on to adjudicate their rights.
Lots of other ways to handle it though. They could:
- Have a “lose your turn” approach (toss your case to the bottom of the pile and keep moving the others through, until you cool down).
- Ignore you and restate the question/statement that preceded the contempt of court. If it persists, then escalate.
- Give a fine; $50 ought to dissuade most people from continuing to cause a problem.
In fact, they could do just about anything before sending someone to jail.
And heck, there are times in my career I wish I could have put someone in a box for being too disruptive during a meeting or something. Yet we don’t do that, in part because we’re supposed to be civilized. Maybe the “point” of contempt charges is to maintain order but it really just makes the court look like a spoiled child that goes way overboard when challenged.
You're arguing against a straw man. There is a lot that happens before someone gets held in contempt, and even then the usual solution is a fine ("$1,000 for every day you refuse to comply with the order") not jail time.
But the threat of criminal contempt is absolutely necessary. Judges have to be able to do things like get CEOs of multi-billion dollar companies to hand over documents or testify about things that could cost their companies a lot of money. They have to order construction halted on a multi-billion theme park to protect endangered frogs. Fines aren't going to get that done. The fear of being sent to jail will.
As a practical matter it almost never comes to that. And even when it does, it's subject to review like any other charge.
I'm sure in a country of 300 million people it's happened before, but I don't know of an actual example, and certainly it doesn't happen enough to register even as a blip in terms of the number of people in jail or prison.
People get held in contempt for refusing to cooperate with the legal process. Not turning over documents they are obligated to turn over, not testifying when they are obligated to testify, etc.
That hearing involved a defendant accused of murder who demanded a new attorney for frivolous reasons. His vulgarity was not just rude--he prevented the hearing from moving forward. That wasted time and taxpayer dollars and also delayed further prosecution of the actual crime. That's a terrible example of a "victimless crime."
Also, as far as I know, the "10 year sentence" was just bluster from the judge, who promptly self-reported the exchange and recused himself from the case, not to mention was publicly admonished for it by the court.
I don't know the statistics, but any basic definition of contempt of court gives the two main reasons: disobeying a court order, or being rude to court officials. Being jailed for disrespect is absolutely a major component of contempt of court.
