NCJ Number
86268
Date Published
1982
Length
21 pages
Annotation
Although punishment deters crime and incapacitates offenders, criminal justice agencies are reluctant to use punishment, so policies should approximate automatic punishment when guilt is established.
Abstract
The unacceptable level of violent and property crime is due in part to the excessively low probability of punishment for the perpetrators. It is obvious that the imprisonment of offenders reduces crime at any given time, because those incarcerated cannot victimize the public. The credibility of the punishment threat has not increased, because the criminal justice system is more concerned about the identifiable lives of criminals than the statistical lives of future victims. An identifiable life is that of a person known and experienced in the present, while a statistical life is a mathematical concept (one of the many persons projected to be a crime victim). Moral psychology prompts us to show a greater preference for identifiable lives than for statistical lives. When considering the punishment of criminals, however, this preference is neither rational nor morally justified. Strategies to increase the use of punishment should include (1) the encouragement of greater commitment to the view that it is morally desirable to punish criminals, (2) removal of the inhumane conditions of imprisonment or the use of alternatives that do not sacrifice preventive effects, (3) the development of political pressure to influence criminal justice policy, and (4) an altering of the incentives of the various actors in the criminal justice process to encourage the more consistent use of punishment. Forty-five notes are listed.