| > if someone can pull up a study showing that prison sentences don't have any deterrent effect over other forms of punishment then I'd accept I'm wrong... Certainly:
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/e199912.htm This is not some joe-schmoe study either, from the executive summary:
"Fifty studies dating from 1958 involving 336,052 offenders produced 325 correlations between recidivism and (a) length of time in prison and recidivism or (b) serving a prison sentence vs. receiving a community-based sanction." In particular:
"The essential conclusions reached from this study were: 1. Prisons should not be used with the expectation of reducing criminal behaviour. 2. On the basis of the present results, excessive use of incarceration has enormous cost implications. 3. In order to determine who is being adversely affected by prison, it is incumbent upon prison officials to implement repeated, comprehensive assessments of offenders’ attitudes, values, and behaviours while incarcerated. 4. The primary justification of prison should be to incapacitate offenders (particularly, those of a chronic, higher risk nature) for reasonable periods and to exact retribution." Summary points 1 and 4 are key: Prisons are not effective deterrence, but they are great tools for indirect retribution suffered by the victim(s). Also in response to your last comment "I'd be somewhat shocked [..]": There are plenty of things that goes against simple human intuition--that's what science is for. Believe the facts, and disregard intuition. |