[mlyle]

Deterrence makes someone not want to commit the crime because of fear of the consequences.

Retribution ("spite") is about getting even.

Rehabilitation is about making it so that the person is less likely to offend again when released and more likely to be of positive value to society.

Removal is about locking someone up so they cannot do more crimes.

A good prison system should balance all four.

[bee_rider]

I wonder how the measure they measure the deterrence effect, it seems impossible to me. It would be a society-wide thing (hard to come up with an isolated experiment) and it seems like something where people would bring in a ton of bias.

[rustcleaner]

Recidivism I think is a great one: direct experience of the traumas of imprisonment not only fail to address the root failures which lead to crime, it seems to exacerbate it! If direct experience fails to deter, I am unconfident proxy experience would see success either. It's a meme by now, but see Norway for something closer to the mark.

[bee_rider]

Recidivism was something I wondered about for a second, but I think it is not what we’re looking for. I think the theory of deterrence is specifically that punishing crimes harshly will make other members of society less willing to commit crimes. Recidivism is a failure of rehabilitation, not deterrence, right?

It also seems like the population of ex-criminals couldn’t be representative of the population as a whole, right?

(FWIW I think the theory of deterrence is probably not correct, I can’t prove a negative, but the burden of proof lies at the feet of people who suggesting it I think).

[mlyle]

> (FWIW I think the theory of deterrence is probably not correct, I can’t prove a negative, but the burden of proof lies at the feet of people who suggesting it I think).

There are absolutely times that I do not speed because I am concerned about the consequences of getting caught.

There are absolutely students in the school where I teach who follow given rules not because they agree with them, but because they are deterred by consequences. They refrain from climbing the volleyball net not from moral agreement, but because it will get them in trouble.

It's better for people to not commit crimes because they agree on the morals and principles involved... but if people don't agree or have a moment of weakness, the consequences are still influential.

[bee_rider]

These are just anecdotes, which are fine for informal conversations like this, but hopefully you’d be a little more rigorous if you were seriously proposing a course of action for the justice system.

In the case of students, they seem to try and cheat sometimes, so the deterrence doesn’t seem very effective. Anyway, the negative consequence is very disperse (it hurts the reputation of the school if they get through without learning anything). The main bad result falls on them (they waste thousands of dollars to intentionally avoid learning). They also might fail the final, not as a punishment, but as a natural result of not learning the material.

In the case of speeding, everyone here speeds. The flow of traffic is always 5-10 over the speed limit here. People are intentionally breaking the posted speed limit to go the safer speed (going the speed limit here impedes the flow of traffic and makes a more dangerous situation for everyone). I think it is more of an informal decision making process—people just follow the herd—but it is a funny example!

[mlyle]

Are you saying you are never influenced by consequences in choosing what to do?

I understand the magnitude of deterrence effects may be in question, or that the relative worth of different types of deterrence are open to debate. But I don't really understand how something that is nearly a universal human experience can be in question. Almost everyone has chosen not to do something because of the consequences of outside rules.

Indeed, we can easily try and see. If I fail to be visible during break duty (so that students think there are unlikely to be consequences), students will climb the volleyball net. :D

> going the speed limit here impedes the flow of traffic and makes a more dangerous situation for everyone).

This has been studied and is itself a silly (untrue) anecdote.

[jimkleiber]

I really appreciate how you mapped out those four concepts and the language you used for them, I feel a lot more clear on it. Thank you.

[mlyle]

Thank you!