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From the purely legal academic standpoint there is the concept of proportionate sentencing. If abusing and killing children gets the same sentence as abusing th

From the purely legal academic standpoint there is the concept of proportionate sentencing. If abusing and killing children gets the same sentence as abusing them, criminals will be incentivised to kill as well since there is no downside.

Doxin 4y ago
Because child rapists are applying game theory to decide which crimes they are going to commit? Your logic only makes sense theoretically. In the real world people barely ever consider the punishments to decide which crimes to commit, especially with emotionally driven crimes such as rape.
- killingtime74 4y ago
  It’s not a complicated thought. Criminals see the news and hear from others. They’ll know if they’re going to get life anyway. It’s wrong to underestimate criminals intelligence
- marton78 4y ago
  This statement is demonstrably false. Yes, people intuitively apply game theory all the time. For example, it is well established that in states with a three strikes law police officers are killed or attempted to be killed by felons having just committed their third strike, because it makes sense from a game theoretical point of view: there is no downside to it (if you're caught, life inprisonment awaits you), but there's a chance to escape.
  - webmaven 4y ago
    > This statement is demonstrably false. Yes, people intuitively apply game theory all the time. People do intuitively apply game theory, but they do so in ways that aren't strictly rational. Rationally, deterrence is a function of the penalty adjusted by the odds of being caught and convicted. which means that doubling the penalty should have the same additional deterring effect as doubling the odds of conviction. However, increasing penalties has a relatively small deterring effect, and increasing enforcement a relatively large one. One way to explain this is to assume that getting caught and convicted has large fixed costs that are independent of the length of sentence. This tends to cut against the dominant tough-on-crime narrative that focuses on increasing penalties, BTW, but for some reason hiring more judges, prosecutors, public defenders, detectives, CSIs and other people to solve cases and actually go to trial isn't as popular as just mandating longer sentences (and coercing defendants to agree to a plea deal).

Doxin 4y ago

Because child rapists are applying game theory to decide which crimes they are going to commit? Your logic only makes sense theoretically. In the real world people barely ever consider the punishments to decide which crimes to commit, especially with emotionally driven crimes such as rape.

killingtime74 4y ago
It’s not a complicated thought. Criminals see the news and hear from others. They’ll know if they’re going to get life anyway. It’s wrong to underestimate criminals intelligence
marton78 4y ago
This statement is demonstrably false. Yes, people intuitively apply game theory all the time. For example, it is well established that in states with a three strikes law police officers are killed or attempted to be killed by felons having just committed their third strike, because it makes sense from a game theoretical point of view: there is no downside to it (if you're caught, life inprisonment awaits you), but there's a chance to escape.
- webmaven 4y ago
  > This statement is demonstrably false. Yes, people intuitively apply game theory all the time. People do intuitively apply game theory, but they do so in ways that aren't strictly rational. Rationally, deterrence is a function of the penalty adjusted by the odds of being caught and convicted. which means that doubling the penalty should have the same additional deterring effect as doubling the odds of conviction. However, increasing penalties has a relatively small deterring effect, and increasing enforcement a relatively large one. One way to explain this is to assume that getting caught and convicted has large fixed costs that are independent of the length of sentence. This tends to cut against the dominant tough-on-crime narrative that focuses on increasing penalties, BTW, but for some reason hiring more judges, prosecutors, public defenders, detectives, CSIs and other people to solve cases and actually go to trial isn't as popular as just mandating longer sentences (and coercing defendants to agree to a plea deal).