First, a quick response to a comment on "Singing the Theories." Dr. Thurmond's little ditty is an example of making up an original song based on an existing melody. However, you are also welcome to use an existing song which fits one of the theories.
Second, I want to share with you a couple of passages from different sources which cast a critical light on deterrence/rational choice theory. I will probably quote these in class, but you will have the verbatim quote here to review when need be.
First, from The Mythology of Crime and Criminal Justice (4th ed.): "If prison terms deterred further criminality, we would expect that people who go to prison would be among the least likely to return there. However, the fact is that within 3 years of release from prison 47 percent were reconvicted of a new crime (Langan & Levin, 2002)."
"So the commonsense logic of deterrence is neither logical nor sensible. It is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of both criminals and crime. For deterrence to work, the offender must be a logical actor who understands the consequences of criminal behavior, knows the penalties, and weighs the cons of crime against the benefits of crime. Logic and calm reflection are simply not parts of the crime equation. In addition, a sizable number of offenders are people without hope, living in desperate circumstances. They are the poor, the unemployed, the uneducated, and the socially alienated. Fear of prison is a relatively minor consideration when stacked up against the hopelessness of their day-to-day existence. Yet, police and politicians continue to pledge eradication of mythical crime problems through more law and order and more punishment." (pp. 362-363)
From Prof. Ronald Akers: "Does an offender choose to commit a crime with full knowledge and free will, taking into account only a carefully reasoned...set of costs and benefits? If it is this kind of pure rationality that rational choice theory assumes, then the theory has virtually no empirical validity. The purely rational calculation of the probable consequences of an action is a rarity even among the general conforming public."
Finally, from Drug War Heresies: "Expected legal risks do have an influence on decisions, but their effects are considerably more muted than generally assumed. Part of the problem is that people just do not seem to combine information in the manner suggested by rational choice theories. For example, Carroll (1978) found that when evaluating hypothetical crime opportunities, few adult and juvenile offenders focused on more than one of the four key deterrence factors: probablity of success, amount of gain, probablity of capture, and size of penalty."
"And the factors that do matter are more likely to involve carrots than sticks. Studies comparing the relative influence of the rewards and risks of crime suggest that criminal gains are more influential than penalties, and the probablity of success is more influential than the probablity of capture...."
One reason gains generally loom larger than risks is that the gains tend to be immediate, whereas legal sanctions are not only uncertain but also in the remote future. Criminal offenders are particularly prone to impulsiveness and an inability to delay gratification."
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3 comments:
It's funny, I never though of jail as a way to deter crime I always thought of it more as a place where people who aren't fit to be out in society are put untill they can be corrected or not. I mean obviously it is a form of punishment but in my mind its always just been a place for all the "bad" people to keep the rest of us safer.
It is kind of funny to think of prison as a way to deter crime mostly because it does not seem to work very well in many cases, (47% of the time according to The Mythology of Crime and Criminal Justice). I can't even count how many times I have done something that I should not have done without even thinking of the consequences of my actions. Or if I do think about it, I always try to figure out how I will benefit from it. So my actions clearly support these quotes given and I'm not even someone who has committed any serious crimes. I can only imagine what goes through a "serious" criminal's head when he/she commits a crime when/if they are desperate or in a bad situation that would cause them to think illogically.
Well I can see the 47% returning to prison.. Ive watched so many stories on prisons, and talking about how almost all the prisoners join a gang as soon as they get in.. I also believe that for some prisoners life in prison is better living conditions than on the out side.. I on the other hand I think that criminals think about what they are going to do, but I also believe when the time comes to break the law everything in their minds go bland and then just do it, almost like blacking out..
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