Ronald, On Monday, 2013-01-21 03:44:57 -0800, "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@tristatelogic.com> wrote:
I can't remember where anymore, but somewhere, a long time ago, I read something about crime & punishment that basically said that for crimes that are particularly easy to pull off, it can be easily seen that those specific types of crimes will run rampant _unless_ the punishment for those few who get caught is made extremely harsh... you know, so that anyone in their right mind would really have to think twice before trying it, even in the odds are only one in a hundred of ever actually getting caught.
Contemporary research tends to suggest that increasing harshness won't help: While the criminal justice system as a whole provides some deterrent effect, a key question for policy development regards whether enhanced sanctions or an enhanced possibility of being apprehended provide any additional deterrent benefits. Research to date generally indicates that increases in the *certainty* of punishment, as opposed to the *severity* of punishment, are more likely to produce deterrent benefits. http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/deterrence%20briefing%20.pdf Cheers, -- Shane p.s. There is a _Star Trek_ episode which posits that we only need the death penalty to achieve utopia though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_%28Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation%29