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I like your argument, but I think it's specious. Unless you can show some evidence that in the absence of deterrence, ordinarily law-abiding citizens commit cri

I like your argument, but I think it's specious. Unless you can show some evidence that in the absence of deterrence, ordinarily law-abiding citizens commit crimes massively more frequently (for instance, when it's very unlikely they get caught), then you're just chalking up every non-crime-committing citizen up to 'deterrence' without demonstrating any causal relationship. I think the relevant data would be crimes that were at one point very common, and are now not. Some things, like forgery, became prohibitively technically difficult. Others, like corruption in public offices, are basically inversely related to pay and pensions for public servants. I could see how vigorous enforcement would make crime more unattractive, since it's a given crime is likely to work out, but I don't think this would always be more economical than simply providing stuff like pensions and benefits so people have social investment they don't want to lose.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
That's going to depend a lot on what the offense is. If you pass a law against suicide, the impact that has on the suicide rate is likely to be negligible, because most people don't have any interest in suicide to begin with and the people who do are not likely to be deterred by the prospect of criminal penalties. But you can certainly find a lot of instances of things that a lot of people did before there was a law against it (e.g. polluting rivers) which now far fewer people do precisely because there is now a law against it.
- pasabagi 7y ago
  I think pollution is a bit of a strange case, since it isn't typically directed at individuals, but rather firms, and in cases where such laws are not enforced they're typically universally ignored. Firms are funny because they're both highly invested in society, generally very rational (in a narrow sense), and generally not particularly interested in ethics. I think that's pretty much the opposite profile to your typical criminal. I'm not in any case saying that such causal relationships don't exist: just that they only exist in a subset of crimes, and probably aren't major drivers in the really interesting ones (theft, violent crime, organized crime, etc).

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

That's going to depend a lot on what the offense is. If you pass a law against suicide, the impact that has on the suicide rate is likely to be negligible, because most people don't have any interest in suicide to begin with and the people who do are not likely to be deterred by the prospect of criminal penalties. But you can certainly find a lot of instances of things that a lot of people did before there was a law against it (e.g. polluting rivers) which now far fewer people do precisely because there is now a law against it.

pasabagi 7y ago
I think pollution is a bit of a strange case, since it isn't typically directed at individuals, but rather firms, and in cases where such laws are not enforced they're typically universally ignored. Firms are funny because they're both highly invested in society, generally very rational (in a narrow sense), and generally not particularly interested in ethics. I think that's pretty much the opposite profile to your typical criminal. I'm not in any case saying that such causal relationships don't exist: just that they only exist in a subset of crimes, and probably aren't major drivers in the really interesting ones (theft, violent crime, organized crime, etc).