Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
journals.uchicago.edu
Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
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Re: Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
#2This analysis seems way too simplistic. These prisoners were given a gift of a shorter sentence. People don't like losing something they've been given and so work hard to avoid losing it. I don't think you'd see this effect if you just changed the laws and made prison sentences longer for everyone.
Only these people had the potential for a longer sentence, and compared to society at large, they knew they would be treated more severely. Thus the relative size of their potential punishment is larger then the rest of the people walking around outside. Nobody likes being treated harsher than the person next to them. That has got to have an effect on a person.
Re: Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
#3If you want to deter crime, use brain scans to identify potential criminals and give them medication to change the way their brain works.
Re: Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
#4If you want to deter crime, use brain scans to identify potential criminals and give them medication to change the way their brain works.
good old thoughtcrime.
Re: Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
#5Re: Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
#6This is why Hemingway is so popular amongst the rabble, while hardly any of them touch Joyce or Proust.
Re: Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
#7So they're saying that incentives actually matter. Huh.
Actually, I think this needs to be qualified. When penalties are pushed so high that the criminal quickly reaches a penalty plateau, then they "in for a penny, in for a pound": if they're willing to commit the smaller crimes, it quickly escalates to larger ones.
So if the penalty for kidnapping is death, then you may as well kill the kid to eliminate witnesses; the murder charge won't hurt you any further. And if you're killing one person, you may as well kill a whole roomful: the first is expensive, the rest are free.
Re: Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
#8If you want to deter crime, use brain scans to identify potential criminals and give them medication to change the way their brain works.
For deeper thoughts on the use of psychology as a means of control, see Thomas Szasz, especially The Myth of Mental Illness .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Mental_Illness
While there surely exist some disorders rooted in physical defects of the brain, mental illnesses too often become a means of forcing people into conformity. Thus, the use of illicit drugs is evidence of mental illness and must be treated.
Re: Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
#9This is why Hemingway is so popular amongst the rabble, while hardly any of them touch Joyce or Proust.
Had I known that I wouldn't have set up my alarm to read The Old Man and the Sea in the authoritative voice before my house got robbed last month.
Re: Study: Potential criminals deterred by longer sentences
#10This analysis seems way too simplistic. These prisoners were given a gift of a shorter sentence. People don't like losing something they've been given and so work hard to avoid losing it. I don't think you'd see this effect if you just changed the laws and made prison sentences longer for everyone. Only these people had the potential for a longer sentence, and compared to society at large, they knew they would be tre…
Agreed. It's hard to say how well this would extend to actually increasing the sentence for the crime itself. In this case, they already have the extra years, so I imagine that it looms larger in their mind. I don't know the psychology behind it, and I'd love to hear someone more knowledgeable chime in, but I suspect that the effect is far different than learning about an increased penalty for some hypothetical future crime they might later commit.