A little incarceration reading: What would a rational criminal justice system look like?
Excerpt:
“The effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent is often misunderstood. Those who fill our prisons are clearly undeterred by society’s punishments. The fact that rates of recidivism in the UK and US hover between 60 and 65 per cent only underscores the point that incarceration routinely fails to deter repeat offending. It might seem that more severe punishments would be more effective deterrents, but often the opposite is true. In a number of cases, the death penalty appears to have produced an anti-deterrent effect, increasing rather than reducing crime rates. And it’s telling that Europe’s lowest reoffending rate is in Norway’s humane prison island of Bastoy. Contrary to popular intuitions, what matters most in deterring criminal behaviour is not so much the severity of punishment but the likelihood of getting caught.
None of this means that we should let violent criminals or corrupt bankers walk free. We have the right to defend society from those who pose a threat, and create incentives for socially beneficial behaviour. But if society were to reject notions of blame and responsibility, we’d see a profound shift in how we think about punishment. The sole aim of the criminal justice system would then be to improve the future, not exact revenge for the past.
If people aren’t ultimately responsible for their actions, then there is no justification for retribution. Broadly speaking, on finding someone guilty of a crime, we have three ways of responding: punishment to deter; rehabilitation to heal; or incarceration to protect. These responses are not mutually exclusive and often overlap. For each, there are two questions to answer: will it be effective and can it be ethically justified? The answers depend on whom we’re talking about – each brain is unique. A ‘one size fits all’ approach is inefficient and unethical.In the US, 10 times more people with serious mental illnesses are in prison than in state hospitals. In the UK, roughly 90 per cent of offenders suffer from psychiatric disorders. Harming a lawbreaker with severe mental-health problems is itself a form of injustice. Punishing an addict with little self-control creates more problems than it solves. Addicts and people with severe mental-health issues need therapeutic help, not brutal, threatening incarceration. As the prison psychiatrist James Gilligan put it in 2000, ‘one of the most effective ways to turn a non-violent person into a violent one is to send him to prison’.”
Excerpt:
“The effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent is often misunderstood. Those who fill our prisons are clearly undeterred by society’s punishments. The fact that rates of recidivism in the UK and US hover between 60 and 65 per cent only underscores the point that incarceration routinely fails to deter repeat offending. It might seem that more severe punishments would be more effective deterrents, but often the opposite is true. In a number of cases, the death penalty appears to have produced an anti-deterrent effect, increasing rather than reducing crime rates. And it’s telling that Europe’s lowest reoffending rate is in Norway’s humane prison island of Bastoy. Contrary to popular intuitions, what matters most in deterring criminal behaviour is not so much the severity of punishment but the likelihood of getting caught.
None of this means that we should let violent criminals or corrupt bankers walk free. We have the right to defend society from those who pose a threat, and create incentives for socially beneficial behaviour. But if society were to reject notions of blame and responsibility, we’d see a profound shift in how we think about punishment. The sole aim of the criminal justice system would then be to improve the future, not exact revenge for the past.
If people aren’t ultimately responsible for their actions, then there is no justification for retribution. Broadly speaking, on finding someone guilty of a crime, we have three ways of responding: punishment to deter; rehabilitation to heal; or incarceration to protect. These responses are not mutually exclusive and often overlap. For each, there are two questions to answer: will it be effective and can it be ethically justified? The answers depend on whom we’re talking about – each brain is unique. A ‘one size fits all’ approach is inefficient and unethical.In the US, 10 times more people with serious mental illnesses are in prison than in state hospitals. In the UK, roughly 90 per cent of offenders suffer from psychiatric disorders. Harming a lawbreaker with severe mental-health problems is itself a form of injustice. Punishing an addict with little self-control creates more problems than it solves. Addicts and people with severe mental-health issues need therapeutic help, not brutal, threatening incarceration. As the prison psychiatrist James Gilligan put it in 2000, ‘one of the most effective ways to turn a non-violent person into a violent one is to send him to prison’.”
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