Deterrence

Deterrence
Author: Thom Brooks
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2019-11-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1351944983

Deterrence is a theory which claims that punishment is justified through preventing future crimes, and is one of the oldest and most powerful theories about punishment. The argument that punishment ought to secure crime reduction occupies a central place in criminal justice policy and is the site for much debate. Should the state deter offenders through the threat of punishment? What available evidence is there about the effectiveness of deterrence? Is deterrence even possible? This volume brings together the leading work on deterrence from the dominant international figures in the field. Deterrence is examined from various critical perspectives, including its diversity, relation with desert, the relation of deterrence with incapacitation and prevention, the role deterrence has played in debates over the death penalty, and deterrence and corporate crime.

Deterrence and the Death Penalty

Deterrence and the Death Penalty
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2012-05-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0309254167

Many studies during the past few decades have sought to determine whether the death penalty has any deterrent effect on homicide rates. Researchers have reached widely varying, even contradictory, conclusions. Some studies have concluded that the threat of capital punishment deters murders, saving large numbers of lives; other studies have concluded that executions actually increase homicides; still others, that executions have no effect on murder rates. Commentary among researchers, advocates, and policymakers on the scientific validity of the findings has sometimes been acrimonious. Against this backdrop, the National Research Council report Deterrence and the Death Penalty assesses whether the available evidence provides a scientific basis for answering questions of if and how the death penalty affects homicide rates. This new report from the Committee on Law and Justice concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates. The key question is whether capital punishment is less or more effective as a deterrent than alternative punishments, such as a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Yet none of the research that has been done accounted for the possible effect of noncapital punishments on homicide rates. The report recommends new avenues of research that may provide broader insight into any deterrent effects from both capital and noncapital punishments.

Deterrence and Crime Prevention

Deterrence and Crime Prevention
Author: David M. Kennedy
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2012-08-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1135976309

Deterrence is at the heart of the preventive aspiration of criminal justice. Deterrence, whether through preventive patrol by police officers or stiff prison sentences for violent offenders, is the principal mechanism through which the central feature of criminal justice, the exercise of state authority, works – it is hoped -- to diminish offending and enhance public safety. And however well we think deterrence works, it clearly often does not work nearly as well as we would like – and often at very great cost. Drawing on a wide range of scholarly literatures and real-world experience, Kennedy argues that we should reframe the ways in which we think about and produce deterrence. He argues that many of the ways in which we seek to deter crime in fact facilitate offending; that simple steps such as providing clear information to offenders could transform deterrence; that communities may be far more effective than legal authorities in deterring crime; that apparently minor sanctions can deter more effectively than draconian ones; that groups, rather than individual offenders, should often be the focus of deterrence; that existing legal tools can be used in unusual but greatly more effective ways; that even serious offenders can be reached through deliberate moral engagement; and that authorities, communities, and offenders – no matter how divided – share and can occupy hidden common ground. The result is a sophisticated but ultimately common-sense and profoundly hopeful case that we can and should use new deterrence strategies to address some of our most important crime problems. Drawing on and expanding on the lessons of groundbreaking real-world work like Boston’s Operation Ceasefire – credited with the "Boston Miracle" of the 1990s – "Deterrence and Crime Prevention" is required reading for scholars, law enforcement practitioners, and all with an interest in public safety and the health of communities.

An Essay on Crimes and Punishments

An Essay on Crimes and Punishments
Author: Cesare Beccaria
Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2006
Genre: Criminal justice, Administration of
ISBN: 1584776382

Reprint of the fourth edition, which contains an additional text attributed to Voltaire. Originally published anonymously in 1764, Dei Delitti e Delle Pene was the first systematic study of the principles of crime and punishment. Infused with the spirit of the Enlightenment, its advocacy of crime prevention and the abolition of torture and capital punishment marked a significant advance in criminological thought, which had changed little since the Middle Ages. It had a profound influence on the development of criminal law in Europe and the United States.

The Behavioral Code

The Behavioral Code
Author: Benjamin van Rooij
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2021-10-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0807049093

A 2022 PROSE Award finalist in Legal Studies and Criminology A 2022 American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award Finalist A Behavioral Scientist’s Notable Book of 2021 Freakonomics for the law—how applying behavioral science to the law can fundamentally change and explain misbehavior Why do most Americans wear seatbelts but continue to speed even though speeding fines are higher? Why could park rangers reduce theft by removing “no stealing” signs? Why was a man who stole 3 golf clubs sentenced to 25 years in prison? Some laws radically change behavior whereas others are consistently ignored and routinely broken. And yet we keep relying on harsh punishment against crime despite its continued failure. Professors Benjamin van Rooij and Adam Fine draw on decades of research to uncover the behavioral code: the root causes and hidden forces that drive human behavior and our responses to society’s laws. In doing so, they present the first accessible analysis of behavioral jurisprudence, which will fundamentally alter how we understand the connection between law and human behavior. The Behavioral Code offers a necessary and different approach to battling crime and injustice that is based in understanding the science of human misconduct—rather than relying on our instinctual drive to punish as a way to shape behavior. The book reveals the behavioral code’s hidden role through illustrative examples like: • The illusion of the US’s beloved tax refund • German walls that “pee back” at public urinators • The $1,000 monthly “good behavior” reward that reduced gun violence • Uber’s backdoor “Greyball” app that helped the company evade Seattle’s taxi regulators • A $2.3 billion legal settlement against Pfizer that revealed how whistleblower protections fail to reduce corporate malfeasance • A toxic organizational culture playing a core role in Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal • How Peter Thiel helped Hulk Hogan sue Gawker into oblivion Revelatory and counterintuitive, The Behavioral Code catalyzes the conversation about how the law can effectively improve human conduct and respond to some of our most pressing issues today, from police misconduct to corporate malfeasance.

A Theory of Legal Punishment

A Theory of Legal Punishment
Author: Matthew C. Altman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2021-05-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000379345

This book argues for a mixed theory of legal punishment that treats both crime reduction and retribution as important aims of the state. A central question in the philosophy of law is why the state’s punishment of its own citizens is justified. Traditionally, two theories of punishment have dominated the field: consequentialism and retributivism. According to consequentialism, punishment is justified when it maximizes positive outcomes. According to retributivism, criminals should be punished because they deserve it. This book recognizes the strength of both positions. According to the two-tiered model, the institution of punishment and statutory penalties, as set by the legislature, are justified based on their costs and benefits, in terms of deterrence and rehabilitation. The law exists to preserve the public order. Criminal courts, by contrast, determine who is punished and how much based on what offenders deserve. The courts express the community’s collective sense of resentment at being wronged. This book supports the two-tiered model by showing that it accords with our moral intuitions, commonly held (compatibilist) theories of freedom, and assumptions about how the extent of our knowledge affects our obligations. It engages classic and contemporary work in the philosophy of law and explains the theory’s advantages over competing approaches from retributivists and other mixed theorists. The book also defends consequentialism against a longstanding objection that the social sciences give us little guidance regarding which policies to adopt. Drawing on recent criminological research, the two-tiered model can help us to address some of our most pressing social issues, including the death penalty, drug policy, and mass incarceration. This book will be of interest to philosophers, legal scholars, policymakers, and social scientists, especially criminologists, economists, and political scientists.

Criminal Deterrence Theory

Criminal Deterrence Theory
Author: David J. Cornwell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Crime prevention
ISBN: 9789462368156

This unusual work by an experienced criminologist challenges the taken-for-granted status and effects of criminal deterrence theory in contemporary justice and punishment worldwide. -- Using the British justice process as an example, it is a hard-hitting critique of the illusory and dysfunctional outcomes of basing penal policies upon the presumed but un-measureable effectiveness of specific and general deterrence in pursuit of crime control. There are better ways of 'doing justice' without the collateral damage caused by mass incarceration as a means of social protection. These are explained in this analysis. -- This is a book which every politician should read and internalise, every sentencing official should carefully consider, and every criminal justice practitioner should welcome. It is, quite simply, a 'call to arms' for long-overdue penal reform.