Crime Deterrence: Methods and Potential Problems Crime deterrence is the decline of crime, because people fear getting arrested and convicted. According to Probation and Parole: Theory and Practice by Howard Abadinsky “the classical school argues that because humans tend toward hedonism- that is, they seek pleasure and avoid pain- they must be restrained, by fear of punishment, from pleasurable acts that are unlawful.” People make a rational decision not to commit a crime because of the fear of arrest and conviction are taken into consideration. Two Types of Deterrence There are two types of crime deterrence, individual (specific) deterrence and general deterrence. “Specific deterrence is the belief that punishment will reduce the likelihood …show more content…
There are three main methods, which are able to break off into smaller categories, that are used to deter members of society from committing crimes. Those main methods are the police, the court systems, and prisons. However, every positive must have a negative. Each of these methods has their own potential problems. Deterrence does not always work. For example, the deterrence theory is when people make a rational decision not to commit a crime because of their fear of arrest and conviction are taken into consideration. Though, this is not always true in many cases, such as when the offender was under the influence of drugs when he/she committed the crime. Their mind is influenced by the drug, and they are not thinking clearly enough to make a rational decision, such as the consequences of their …show more content…
Just the thought that they might be caught is a powerful deterrent for would-be criminals. There are several ways that police deter crime: visibility, warnings, tickets, fines, and arrests are a few of them. Police visibility is a great way to deter crime. A criminal would be less likely to commit a crime if they had seen a police officer in that area recently. Robert Apel’s paper, published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, stated that the visibility of the officers, sometimes called cops on the corner, projects a credible threat of detection and apprehension. (Apel, 2013). Another way that police deter crime is by increasing their arrest and tickets. “Police deter crime when they do things that strengthen a criminal’s perception of the certainty of being caught.” (Five Things, 2016). When police have “crackdowns” on certain crimes, the general population begins to avoid committing those crimes, because the increased possibility of being caught. For example, when the click it or ticket law was enacted and the police were very strict about everyone wearing their seatbelts. Lots of people were pulled over and given tickets. More and more people began wearing their seatbelts, especially if that was an area that a cop was known to wait
The three-strikes law is defined as “judges sentence offenders with three felony convictions (in some states two or four convictions) to long prison terms, sometimes to life without parole (Cole 2014). The purpose of the three strikes law includes is incapacitation and deterrence (Cole 2014). The purpose of a sentencing and the goals of punishment ideally are meant to correspond to each other. The goals of punishment include retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restorative punishment (Cole 2014). Deterrence is broken down into either specific or general deterrence. General deterrence is defined as punishment of criminals that is intended to be an example to the general public and to discourage the commission of offenses”. Specific deterrence is defined as “punishment inflicted on criminals to discourage them from committing future crimes”. Lastly, incapacitation is defined as “depriving an offender of the ability to commit crimes against society, usually by detaining the offender in prison” (Cole 2014). Two empirical articles research the effectiveness of the three strikes law on crime trends, the impact the law has on population prisons, effect on a prisons budget,
There are several aspects within deterrence that are important to understand when discussing the theories of deterrence and labeling. According to the deterrence theory, there are two different classifications of deterrence—specific and general. First, specific deterrence is defined as apprehending an offender and punishing him or her which will refrain them from repeating crimes if they are caught and punished by the criminal justice system (Akers and Sellers, 16). Secondly, general deterrence is defined as the states way of punishing society for a crime that they have not committed, while using a certain group of people who have committed that crime. By doing so, those who are in charge of punishment, inflict fear on members
9. Sherman L., Gottfredson D., MacKenzie D., Eck J., Reuter P., Bushway S. Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising. A Report to the United States Congress. College Park, MD: University of Maryland, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 1997.
Unfortunately, evidence has shown that mandatory minimums and severity of punishment as a whole is sorely ineffective as a deterrent for crime. The idea of punishment as a deterrent hinges on the perception of criminals as rational actors who, before committing a deviant act, weigh the potential costs and benefits logically (Renke, 2001). Crime is not always the product of careful reflection, many instances are snap judgements which occur too fast to consider the outcomes. In addition, deterrence assumes that criminals are aware of the law and the punishments which will come as a result of crime. As has been already mentioned, the public is largely unaware of the finer details of the criminal justice system, criminals included. To compound this issue, those who are most unaware and uneducated about the law are those of low socio-economic status, which puts them at an increased risk of offending. As Renke notes, based on a meta-analysis of other literature regarding deterrence, the perceived fairness of the law and the criminal justice system factors into whether or not policy can be a deterrent. If an individual or group believes the system to be unfairly biased against them then the authority of the law holds less deterrent weight (2001). Considering that those of low
The term criminal desistance refers to when offenders desist, or stop, committing crime. Desistance from crime exists when an individual has an absence of criminal behavior in their lives for a sustained period of time. By studying desistance, a better understanding of what causes individuals to commit crime is created; as well as, a better understanding as to why certain individuals discontinue their lives of crime. The criminal justice field often encompasses, serving justice by locking people up and keeping the “bad guys” away from the general public. Little thought was given as to what can be done in order to help prevent people from committing crime, until more recent years. Most criminological theories attempt to explain why people commit
Houser, K. (2014). Nature of Crime, Deterrence Theory. Lecture conducted from Temple University, Ambler, Pa.
Deterrence is broken into two types, which are general and specific. General deterrence is the punishment of offenders in hopes to set an example to the public. It’s intention is to lower the offenses other people might commit. Specific deterrence is punishment directly on criminals to lower the rate of them committing future crimes. Deterrence concludes that “people act rationally and think before they act.”
4) Given what is described in this research only, how might these offenders be prevented from doing crime – including stopping doing crime all together, committing less crime, or committing less serious crime? In other words, what intervention might be useful to reduce or help eliminate this crime? Do not just include increased imprisonment or longer sentences UNLESS the research relates to a THEORY that has policy implications related to increased imprisonment or longer sentences.
One aspect in the Rational Choice theory that relates to deterrence and classical theorists is Routine Activity theory. Routine Activity Theory is when people are victimized because of everyday interactions. These three factors that cause people to be victimized include people that seem vulnerable enough to be victimized, places where there aren’t a lot of police activity and proper guardianship are places where people will most likely be victimized, and when a person wants to commit or is thinking about committing a crime, that person will most likely commit that crime. This theory is based off of people’s rational choice to and their free will to commit a crime. Classical criminologists like Cesare Beccaria, believed that people who made rational choices to commit a crime, their punishment should
This paper will be focusing on the courts as the specific sub-system in the criminal justice system. As said in the book the court system is responsible for charging criminal suspects, carrying out trials, and sentencing a person convicted of a crime. The fear of crime influences criminal justice policies in the court system. One way it does this is with the courts sentencing. Courts are able to give out severe punishments as a method of deterrence. This specific type of deterrence would be general deterrence. The book says that general deterrence theory should work if the punishment is clear, severe, and done swiftly. According to this theory, crime rate should drop because people will fear the punishment. The other way fear of crime influences
Society is always looking for ways to prevent crime. Alternative crime prevention strategies are constantly developed to keep up with an evolving society and changing offending behaviours. Crime prevention strategies aim to reduce the likelihood of criminal behaviours and opportunities for crime. The two main areas of crime prevention are situational crime prevention and social crime prevention. Situational crime prevention aims to make it more difficult for criminals to carry out a crime and therefore stop a crime before it is committed. Social crime prevention attempts to address the underlying social factors that may lead to criminal behaviour. They both use their various techniques in order to effectively reduce criminal activity within
Deterrence theory of crime is a method in which punishment is used to dissuade people from committing crimes. There are two types of deterrence: general and specific. General deterrence is punishment to an individual to stop the society as a whole from committing crimes. In other word, it is using the punishment as an example to “scare” society from precipitating in criminal acts. Under general deterrence, publicity is a major part of deterrence. Crime and their punishments being showing in the media or being told person to person can be used to deter crime. Specific deterrence is punishment to the individual to stop that individual from committing other crimes in the future. This type of deterrence is used to teach the individual a lesson whatever action that participated in. Specific deterrence is founded on a principle called hedonistic calculus meaning, “an assumption that human nature leads people to pursue pleasure and avoid pain” (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2010, p 155).
Deterrence suggests that people are “deterred” from a crime by the threat of punishment. In other words, people won’t commit a crime if the ramifications that were to follow are so severe. Deterrence comes in two flavors, specific and general. Specific deterrence refers to the “threat of punishment” being directly aimed towards a particular individual who has already committed the crime through actually experiencing the punishment first hand. An example of this may be, being convicted of a crime and as a result being sentenced to so many years in jail or prison. However, in order for it to be successful, the “previously ...
Deterrence means to punish somebody as an example and to create fear in other people for the punishment. Death penalty is one of those extreme punishments that would create fear in the mind of any sane person. Ernest van den Haag, in his article "On Deterrence and the Death Penalty" mentions, "One abstains from dangerous acts because of vague, inchoate, habitual and, above all, preconscious fears" (193). Everybody fears death, even animals. Most criminals would think twice if they knew their own lives were at stake. Although there is no statistical evidence that death penalty deters crime, but we have to agree that most of us fear death. Suppose there is no death penalty in a state and life imprisonment without parole is the maximum punishment. What is stopping a prisoner who is facing a life imprisonment without parole to commit another murder in the prison? According to Paul Van Slambrouck, " Assaults in prisons all over US, both against fellow inmates and against staff, have more than doubled in the past decade, according to statistics gathered by the Criminal Justice Institute in Middletown, Connecticut" (Christian Science Monitor, Internet).
Sherman, L., & Weisburd, D. (1995) General deterrent effects of police patrol in crime “Hot