Criminal Deterrence Research Paper
Crime Deterrence
Within the past few years, Provincial and federal incarceration rates have slowly but steadily been increasing, with actual number of adults being admitted to territorial, provincial or federal programs at 211,970 in 2006, and steadily climbing to 262,067 in 20101, with the rising crime rate comes different methods to attempt to combat crime, some focus on being more preventative, such as community outreach programs that focus on at risk youth or children who live in priority neighborhoods, while others are primarily used once a crime has occurred, such as police intervention leading to a civil suit or a criminal charge; this, is the concept of Crime Deterrence, sometimes Deterrence can be viewed as flawed for the fact it assumes that most humans think things out before they commit a crime [Mens Rea]
Before I proceed, I think it best to delve further into to the basics of criminal Deterrence, and what it is. Deterrence is based on the concept that if the consequence of committing a crime outweighs the benefits of the crime, then the perpetrator will be deterred from committing said crime. This is all in the idea that as humans we all know the difference between right and wrong and that with criminal behavior, a penalty is bound to follow, when an individual acts, they’re doing so out of free will and they know what they’re doing, be it right or wrong. Ironically the deterrence model is flawed to an extent with it’s thinking; criminals are rational, a murderer may be a murderer for the same reasons I choose to work as a salesman for the time being: because the profession makes him better off than anything else available to them. The model fails to realise that murderers, or anyone who commits crime for that matter, are constantly outweighing the benefits and repercussions of any actions they may commit, not thinking of what may be a rational and sound decision to others.
If it were the case that all robbers, murderers and conmen were rational
Within the past few years, Provincial and federal incarceration rates have slowly but steadily been increasing, with actual number of adults being admitted to territorial, provincial or federal programs at 211,970 in 2006, and steadily climbing to 262,067 in 20101, with the rising crime rate comes different methods to attempt to combat crime, some focus on being more preventative, such as community outreach programs that focus on at risk youth or children who live in priority neighborhoods, while others are primarily used once a crime has occurred, such as police intervention leading to a civil suit or a criminal charge; this, is the concept of Crime Deterrence, sometimes Deterrence can be viewed as flawed for the fact it assumes that most humans think things out before they commit a crime [Mens Rea]
Before I proceed, I think it best to delve further into to the basics of criminal Deterrence, and what it is. Deterrence is based on the concept that if the consequence of committing a crime outweighs the benefits of the crime, then the perpetrator will be deterred from committing said crime. This is all in the idea that as humans we all know the difference between right and wrong and that with criminal behavior, a penalty is bound to follow, when an individual acts, they’re doing so out of free will and they know what they’re doing, be it right or wrong. Ironically the deterrence model is flawed to an extent with it’s thinking; criminals are rational, a murderer may be a murderer for the same reasons I choose to work as a salesman for the time being: because the profession makes him better off than anything else available to them. The model fails to realise that murderers, or anyone who commits crime for that matter, are constantly outweighing the benefits and repercussions of any actions they may commit, not thinking of what may be a rational and sound decision to others.
If it were the case that all robbers, murderers and conmen were rational