8.3. Deterrence
David Carter
Deterrence
Forward-looking ideologies are designed to provide punishment, but also to reduce the level of reoffending (recidivism) through some type of change, while the backward-looking approach is solely for the punishment of the offender’s past actions. This change in how we view punishment is a large shift that has ripples in culture, the politics of the times, and even religion. Moving many eras forward from Hammurabi, deterrence is the next major punishment ideology. Rooted in the concepts of classical criminology, deterrence is designed to punish current behavior(s), but also ward off future behaviors through sanctions or threats of sanctions. Moreover, it can be focused on a group or one individual. Thus, the basic concept of deterrence is “the reduction of offending (and future offending) through the sanction or threat of sanction.”
When looking at punishment through this deterrent design, can be split into two distinct categories: general and specific. Specific deterrence is geared towards trying to teach the individual offender a lesson. It is meant to better that individual so they will not recidivate. By punishing the offender (or threatening a sanction), it is assumed they will not commit a crime again. It is this point that makes deterrence a forward-looking theory of punishment. General deterrence runs along the same track as specific deterrence. However, general deterrence differs by when one person offends, the punishment received is going to be the same for all. In this way, the group the punishing attempts to relay the message of future events to the masses. If someone commits this act, they will be punished; this is part of the core design for deterrence.
Some other principles of deterrence to discuss in brief are marginal, absolute, and displacement. Marginal deterrence works on the principle that the action itself is only reduced in amount by the offender, not removed. An example of this would be, a person sees a police officer sitting on the side of the freeway. If they are driving 70 mph, they might slow to 58 mph. Technically, they may still be breaking the law, yet their level of criminal behavior has been reduced. Absolute deterrence is a surrealistic concept often thought to be created by Robert Peel, in his idea of creating a police force to remove all crime. By today’s standards, we know this to be false. There is little to no evidence to support that all crime can be deterred within a specific area, or even in general. Displacement argues that crime is not deterred, but rather, it is shifted on three levels. It may be shifted by time, location, or the type of crime committed. Instead of someone stealing cars on the weekend, they may sell drugs during the day. Although the weekend crime carjacking rate will decrease, the daily drug trade will increase.
For all of these principles of deterrence to work, the people who are involved (meaning society as a whole) must have a conceptual (perce