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> Studies consistently show that the rates of premeditated crimes decrease when the penalties increase. Which studies show that? Most studies I'm aware of sho

> Studies consistently show that the rates of premeditated crimes decrease when the penalties increase. Which studies show that? Most studies I'm aware of show that severity is a very weak deterrent and that certainty is much more effective [1]. > The Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University was commissioned by the British Home Office to conduct a review of research on major studies of deterrence. Their 1999 report concluded that “…the studies reviewed do not provide a basis for inferring that increasing the severity of sentences generally is capable of enhancing deterrent effects.” > Daniel Nagin and Greg Pogarsky, leading scholars on deterrence, conclude that “punishment certainty is far more consistently found to deter crime than punishment severity, and the extra-legal consequences of crime seem at least as great a deterrent as the legal consequences.” > researchers compared crime and punishment trends in the U.S., England, and Sweden, and failed to find an effect for severity. The statistical associations were weak and even when there was a negative relationship between severity of punishment and crime rates, the findings were not strong enough to achieve statistical significance. http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/Deterrence%20Briefing%20.pdf http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/Deterrence%20Briefing%2...

mgraczyk 11y ago
There are a couple of problems with the analysis you linked to, primarily that it doesn't differentiate between premeditated and unplanned crimes. It specifically mentions that "half of all state prisoners were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their offense." This article suggests that more carefully examining the way people interpret severity can demonstrate that in many cases, severity is an effective deterrent [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2001.tb02112.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2001....]. I contend that cattle theft is typically planned in advance and not a spur-of-the-moment offense.

mgraczyk 11y ago

There are a couple of problems with the analysis you linked to, primarily that it doesn't differentiate between premeditated and unplanned crimes. It specifically mentions that "half of all state prisoners were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their offense." This article suggests that more carefully examining the way people interpret severity can demonstrate that in many cases, severity is an effective deterrent [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2001.tb02112.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2001....]. I contend that cattle theft is typically planned in advance and not a spur-of-the-moment offense.