punishment(was: Student Loans & Bankruptcies (was Re: creativefinancing)

[Justin Schwartz]

Deterrence is a complicated and delicate empirical question. The people do 
do commit crimes--not just violent ones--are not the only relevant group. 
They are, by definition, the failures of deterrence. One also has to 
consider those who might commit crimes, but don't. Current studies support 
the idea that most people obey the law because they think it's right rather 
than because of fear of punishment. But some people are deterred from 
commiting crimes, or worse crimes then they do commit, by fear of 
punishment. Just taking deterrence as to be the main goal of criminal 
justice, which it is not in our or any country, once would have to look 
carefully at the evidence of who is deterred by what sort of bad 
consequences, and consider the costs of over- and under-deterring. This sort 
of analysis is virtually never done, partly because it is hard, and partly 
because criminal justice serves other goals and needs--partly retribution, 
and partly even less justifiable needs, such as suppressing the parts of the 
population that are its main object--the poor and minorities. --jks


>
>Albert Camus said, in "Reflections on the Guillotine," that a perpetrator 
>will fear punishment after the verdict but not before the crime. He also 
>quoted Francis Bacon saying that there's no passion so weak that it cannot 
>confront and overpower the fear of death. Most people who commit a violent 
>crime don't factor in what the state will do to them if caught, they just 
>plan not to get caught. And that's if they even think about it at all. As I 
>understand it, most of those responsible for violent crimes don't know 
>they're going to kill even an hour before they do so, much less engage in 
>some cost-benefit analysis of their behavior and its consequences.
>
>-- Shane
>
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