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People who commit crimes generally do not think they will be caught and therefore the punishment is of no concern to them. The better way to deter crime[1] is t

People who commit crimes generally do not think they will be caught and therefore the punishment is of no concern to them. The better way to deter crime[1] is to convince more of the public that people who commit crimes are usually caught. Preferably by actually catching people who commit crimes. 1. aside from the obviously effective but difficult to implement deterrent of meeting everyone's physical needs

cortesoft 8mo ago
A lot of crimes are also committed by people who genuinely don't think about the consequences when they are acting. It doesn't matter how bad or how certain the consequence is, because they aren't thinking about it at all.
- akoboldfrying 8mo ago
  But apparently there are far fewer such people in Singapore. How would you explain this? I think the explanation is that growing up in an environment where even small infringements are consistently punished makes people think about the consequences more.
  - decremental 8mo ago
    [dead]
  - rmunn 8mo ago
    This is exactly right. People who get away with some rule-breaking, whether it's large or small, once will start to think maybe they can get away with it a second time. Get away with it a dozen times and you start to think you can get away with it every time, leading to the "people who genuinely don't think about the consequences when they are acting" that cortesoft mentioned. That sort of behavior isn't just a facet of personality, it's trained (or it might be more accurate to say, it wasn't trained out of them — all children act on impulse, it's the nature of children, but if their parents consistently punish them for sneaking cookies out of the cookie jar and they never get away with it, they eventually learn not to do it in the first place and to think about the consequences before they act). So when a lot of people grow up in an environment where small rulebreakings are consistently caught and punished (the former is more important, can't punish what isn't detected), they learn from an early age that rulebreaking carries consequences nearly every time, and you end up with far fewer people willing to break the rules.
    - wredcoll 8mo ago
      This is just... wildly vague. People break rules for all sorts of reasons, ignorance, desperation, mental impairment, sometimes just plain maliciousness or greed. It's one thing to discuss something like a school campus with a small cohort of relatively similar wants and needs and a relatively small set of rules, it becomes much more complicated when dealing with the entire society's interaction with laws.
      - akoboldfrying 8mo ago
        How would you explain the observed difference in behaviour then?
        wredcoll 8mo ago
        Skull shape. They obviously are predisposed to having the right set of skull bumps.
        akoboldfrying 8mo ago
        That's one way to avoid an unwelcome conclusion.
- tsimionescu 8mo ago
  I don't think that is a significant proportion of crime, though it certainly exists. Most crime is organized (theft, pickpocketing, robbery, kidnappings, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, racketeering), or it exists in an atmosphere of impunity, where there is a baseline assumption of no consequences (Epstein files, rape culture in certain industries).
lenkite 8mo ago
> People who commit crimes generally do not think they will be caught and therefore the punishment is of no concern to them. The mere possibility of severe butt-pain keeps all the would-be criminals in line. I can definitely get away with it, but just in case I cannot - it's not a mere jail holiday that I face as consequence - I wont be able to even sit down without screaming like a baby -> The foolish criminal becomes wise and the hardened criminal becomes enlightened with this fundamental realization. The Possibility of Pulverizing Pain via the Holy Cane is the Divine Motivation to Obey the Law.

cortesoft 8mo ago

A lot of crimes are also committed by people who genuinely don't think about the consequences when they are acting. It doesn't matter how bad or how certain the consequence is, because they aren't thinking about it at all.

akoboldfrying 8mo ago
But apparently there are far fewer such people in Singapore. How would you explain this? I think the explanation is that growing up in an environment where even small infringements are consistently punished makes people think about the consequences more.
- decremental 8mo ago
  [dead]
- rmunn 8mo ago
  This is exactly right. People who get away with some rule-breaking, whether it's large or small, once will start to think maybe they can get away with it a second time. Get away with it a dozen times and you start to think you can get away with it every time, leading to the "people who genuinely don't think about the consequences when they are acting" that cortesoft mentioned. That sort of behavior isn't just a facet of personality, it's trained (or it might be more accurate to say, it wasn't trained out of them — all children act on impulse, it's the nature of children, but if their parents consistently punish them for sneaking cookies out of the cookie jar and they never get away with it, they eventually learn not to do it in the first place and to think about the consequences before they act). So when a lot of people grow up in an environment where small rulebreakings are consistently caught and punished (the former is more important, can't punish what isn't detected), they learn from an early age that rulebreaking carries consequences nearly every time, and you end up with far fewer people willing to break the rules.
  - wredcoll 8mo ago
    This is just... wildly vague. People break rules for all sorts of reasons, ignorance, desperation, mental impairment, sometimes just plain maliciousness or greed. It's one thing to discuss something like a school campus with a small cohort of relatively similar wants and needs and a relatively small set of rules, it becomes much more complicated when dealing with the entire society's interaction with laws.
    - akoboldfrying 8mo ago
      How would you explain the observed difference in behaviour then?
      - wredcoll 8mo ago
        Skull shape. They obviously are predisposed to having the right set of skull bumps.
        akoboldfrying 8mo ago
        That's one way to avoid an unwelcome conclusion.
tsimionescu 8mo ago
I don't think that is a significant proportion of crime, though it certainly exists. Most crime is organized (theft, pickpocketing, robbery, kidnappings, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, racketeering), or it exists in an atmosphere of impunity, where there is a baseline assumption of no consequences (Epstein files, rape culture in certain industries).

lenkite 8mo ago

> People who commit crimes generally do not think they will be caught and therefore the punishment is of no concern to them. The mere possibility of severe butt-pain keeps all the would-be criminals in line. I can definitely get away with it, but just in case I cannot - it's not a mere jail holiday that I face as consequence - I wont be able to even sit down without screaming like a baby -> The foolish criminal becomes wise and the hardened criminal becomes enlightened with this fundamental realization. The Possibility of Pulverizing Pain via the Holy Cane is the Divine Motivation to Obey the Law.