Preventing Crime with Punishment
Hang, Ernest van den
Ernest van den Haag Preventing Crime with Punishment The credible threat of punishment remains the most effective deterrent to crime. The fundamental purpose of criminal laws is to use the...
...This buffer diplomacy may involve several approaches...
...and it must be proportioned to the felt gravity of the crime...
...Thus we distribute the threatened penalties only to t h o s e found guilty of crime...
...If the crime rate has declined similarly, it is a well kept secret...
...How, then, can the crime rate be reduced...
...Although we often fail to act like it, we generally hold the upper hand in economic dealings with the Communist nations...
...Obviously, the threat has been ineffective with those who have already violated the law...
...And even if he had not found any reduction in the rate at which the offense was committed, it would not surprise me, nor would it argue against the deterrent effect of the penalty...
...Unlike incapacitation, rehabilitation is not a practical possibility at all, and I doubt that it can ever be on a major scale...
...phitip M. seib Nipping Crisis in Yugoslavia The United States must develop a firm policy against Soviet intervention in Yugoslavia--before the scramble for power that will follow Tito's death...
...others because nature or society placed them in a disadvantageous position which reduces their legitimate opportunities and, in comparative terms, increases the attractiveness of illegimate opportunities...
...10 The Alternative: An American Spectator May 1977 Indeed, there is no evidence that our institutions, which barely manage to teach reading and writing to children, can do any better with the behavior of adults...
...To prohibit rape or theft imposes a heavier burden on one tempted to commit either offense than on a person not so tempted, whether by his circumstances or by his character...
...They will also be punished more often...
...The Kremlin, in turn, found little to deter its interventionist inclinations...
...At present it is still rising...
...A different combination leads others to become dentists or criminologists...
...There is no way--under capitalism, socialism, or any social system--of equalizing temptations, or individual needs, or individual responsiveness to them...
...In 1900 ninety percent of all families were below the equivalent in actual purchasing power...
...Just as pro-Moscow Czechoslovaks and Hungarians called for the Soviets to restore Philip M. Seib, formerly a staff worker for the Democratic National Committee, is a Dallas attorney and public policy consultant...
...But in practical terms that reservoir is unlimited, for dentists, criminologists, or criminals engaged in instrumental crimes, i.e., for all criminals except those engaged in crime irrationally...
...But those who repeat his mistake today should be blamed for their ignorance...
...By the force of his personality and his ruthless political skill, Josip Broz Tito has both kept the Soviets at arm's length and prevented his country from crumbling into ethnic and ideological factionalism...
...The story has been repeated innumerable times...
...The greatest burden of the law thus is on those most tempted to violate it, usually those with the fewest legitimate opportunities and satisfactions...
...The threat of punishment is a purely utilitarian measure...
...He didn't...
...I should favor more incapacitation when possible--if and when we are able to tell the habitual law violator from others...
...With little or no Western support for the governments, pro-Soviet officials in both Czechoslovakia and Hungary were able to take full advantage of the chaos in their countries and appeal to the Russians for assistance in restoring order...
...Roughly speaking, the burden of the law will always be heaviest on those placed in the least advantageous position by nature or society--the poor or those brought up in an unfavorable family environment, e.g., by violent or cruel parents...
...Further, the punishment must be as threatened, i.e., not arbitrary...
...With this in mind, the United States now must move promptly to make sure nothing similar happens in Yugoslavia...
...Johnson took a less than scientific approach...
...Rather, deterrence reduces the number of new entrants so that there will be fewer than there would be if there were no penalties, or if the penalties were less severe or less certain...
...Let me quote a former president of the American Society of Criminology, Bruno Cormier (The Watcher and the Watched, p. 268): "Society must learn to accept that a delinquent treated by psychotherapeutic techniques may have benefited from such treatment even though he returns to crime...
...Only if these cost-benefit factors are changed can the rate of instrumental crime be affected...
...I have no doubt that changes in social arrangements--e.g., making divorce or employment easier to get--may have some marginal effect...
...Threats cannot and will not restrain everybody all the time, but they are effective in all existing societies with most people most of the time--provided they are carried out when the law is violated...
...Hence the law will always be more burdensome to some than to others...
...Yet these changes have not reduced the crime rate...
...I need not mention all the horrors practiced in the name of rehabilitation--such as indeterminate sentences, parole, etc...
...Else, high enough penalties could eliminate all crime...
...If we make new efforts to further our economic relations with Yugoslavia while at the same time making clear that we do so believing in and conditional upon a certain degree of Yugoslav autonomy, it will put the Kremlin on notice that the United States will respond economically, if not militarily, to Soviet intervention...
...order in their countries, so too it is not difficult to imagine a Soviet invasion in response to calls for a "rescue mission" from proMoscow factions in Yugoslavia...
...To prevent such an invasion, we must develop a "buffer diplomacy" that will indicate where the United States stands on Yugoslavia--before the time of crisis that will follow Tito's death...
...Thus, Timothy I (1:9): "The law is not made for the righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient...
...On the contrary: the crime rate among females and blacks has increased as their opportunities have become more equal...
...But the practical possibilities are limited...
...And in the present situation the most urgent task is to increase the threat level...
...out the threat...
...Not everyone agrees that punishment is an effective deterrent to others...
...A second strategy should make it clear to the Soviets that any attempts at military gamesmanship in the Adriatic or elsewhere in Europe will seriously jeopardize plans for mutual arms reductions...
...They depend in part on the risk of punishment, a cost factor...
...This will require no miracle from President Carter, but rather will oblige him only to enunciate consistently and forcefully an American foreign policy that goes beyond the Helsinki Accord...
...Criminals engage in instrumental crimes such as picking pockets, mugging, tax evasion, car theft, rackets, because of a combination of personality and of comparative benefits and opportunities...
...The punitive threat is quite unlikely to eliminate altogether the offense being threatened...
...The pickpockets who were working the crowd were committed to their careers and had made the commitment in view of the risk of the penalty...
...Some persons are tempted to commit crimes for individual and intrapsychic reasons...
...Only if that level is maintained can social improvements reduce the crime rate...
...it would be redundant if addressed only to those not tempted to do what it prohibits...
...His succession is likely to be plagued by conflicts not only between Serbs, Croats, and the other nationalities of Yugoslavia, but also between Communists of varying degrees of loyalty to Moscow...
...Yet contrary to what one so often hears, it is still mainly the disadvantaged--the poor and the powerless--that the criminal law protects...
...The threat of punishment can deter people from prohibited acts only if credible...
...In this country an income of $5,500 for a family of four has been decreed as the poverty line...
...This is what is meant by deterrent effect...
...But even if rehabilitation were effective, or if all non-rehabilitated convicts could be permanently incapacitated, I do not think that the rate of instrumental (rational) crimes would be reduced...
...Incapacitation for habitual offenders might reduce the crime rate by reducing the offenses of those irrationally addicted to crime who, when free, commit crimes regardless of legal threats...
...But the law is the only protection the poor and powerless have...
...Else the threat becomes ineffective...
...and in 1976, 11-I3 percent...
...Thus, we will deter, ceteris paribus, if we punish more lawbreakers more severely...
...And I favor some such changes...
...Non-instrumental crimes also depend on the size of the reservoir of people attractable to, or capable of, committing the crime...
...also have been improved, and opportunity is far more equal than it ever was...
...Social conditions were improved...
...The Alternative: An American Spectator May 1977 11...
...But their effect has been minor, and to stress them is to misplace the emphasis...
...As long as they are incapacitated, these persons would not be able to commit the crimes from which they cannot otherwise be deterred...
...but threats of punishment will be effective enough, if properly applied, to restrain others from crime...
...It is meant to protect society...
...His latest book is Punishing Criminals...
...The fundamental purpose of criminal laws is to use the threat of punishment in order to restrain persons who are tempted to do what the laws prohibit...
...The law is addressed to all those impelled toward crime, whatever their temptation...
...Johnson attended the hanging of a pickpocket and, finding that the pickpocket's colleagues continued to work the crowd, concluded that the death penalty does not deter...
...According to Boswell, Dr...
...Deterrent effects can be expected not with respect to those already committed to their criminal careers and who made the commitment knowing the risks they took...
...Prisons are meant to protect society from crime--present and future--and, if convicts while benefiting from treatment still return to crime, I do not think the treatment was socially useful...
...They need the law least...
...And the threat remains credible only if carried out as threatened...
...Yet the conclusion is obviously wrong...
...Cormier, I do not think we should send people to prison for their health...
...The cost of crime is the severity of punishment multiplied by the probability of its being inflicted...
...Although many offenders are drug addicts, in most cases they were offenders before becoming addicts and the drug addiction contributes to rather than causes their crimes...
...It is in the nature of any prohibition to affect different people differently, and to be most painful to those most tempted to do what is prohibited: they will have the greatest difficulty obeying...
...But Tito is in his mid-eighties, and when he dies he will leave no heir with commensurate strength...
...But we also try to be just when we carry Ernest van den Haag is professor of social philosophy at New York University, and lecturer in psychology and sociology at the New School for Social Researcb...
...I am willing to accept that, but unlike Dr...
...Else crime pays and more crime will be committed as people realize that it does...
...Education, psychiatric care, etc...
...In any society the rich and powerful can protect themselves...
...In 1956, when Imre Nagy's young regime in Hungary faced an onslaught of Russian tanks, and in 1968, when the Dubcek government in Czechoslovakia was struggling for survival, the United States was virtually paralyzed--unable or unwilling to recognize the legitimacy of these governments or even to warn the Russians not to meddle...
...Thus, if Johnson wanted to determine the deterrent effect, he would have had to compare the amount of pickpocketing activity in the crowd attending the hanging with the amount in a similarly sized crowd without the hanging...
...Given that we have, however unfortunately, ratified the Sovietdominated status quo in Eastern Europe, we must now state to the Kremlin and to the world that the scope of the Soviet sphere of influence can be extended no further, either in terms of physical expansion or political control...
...Rich adolescents, for example, are less tempted to steal cars, and will commit fewer car thefts than poor ones...
...This would reduce the rate, say, of child molesting or of certain violent crimes committed in part for thrill and not for instrumental reasons alone...
...I mean addicted to crime, not addicted to drugs...
...Punishment must become more certain and less lenient if the crime rate is to be reduced...
...In addition to threatening punishment we can also reduce crime rates by decreasing criminal opportunities, and by increasing legitimate ones...
...It is easy to understand why Dr...
...A punitive threat is deterrent when it reduces the rate at which the threatened crime is committed...
...Now, if we were to incapacitate or rehabilitate all dentists, or all criminologists, presently practicing, the rate at which dentistry or criminology would be committed would remain the same (in the long run) as long as there is no change in the relative cost-benefit attractions--net gains--that determines that rate...
...And who is likely to be "lawless and disobedient...
...A better social order, it is contended, may reduce the temptation to, or pressure for, committing crimes...
...But the level of effective (credible) threats against criminal behavior was independently reduced...
...The reason for this seeming paradox is simple enough...
...Why then would the hanging deter them...
...by 1920 the figure was 50 percent...
...They need protection against others, usually poor and powerless as well, for most crimes are committed by the poor against the poor...
Vol. 10 • May 1977 • No. 8
