classical school

Beccaria and Bentham ⇒ classical school of crim

• people exercise free will and have agency

• we are rational beings

• people are hedonistic pleasure-seekers

  • rationally engage in hedonistic calculus (i,e, seek to increase pleasure and minimize pain)

  • are people equally rational?

  • are people consistently rational?

policy implications

try to change behavior with negative reinforcement

• after the outcome of hedonistic calculus

  • punishment must offsetthe pleasure of crime

  • not focused on retributions and/or retaliation

classical ←—————neoclassical ——————→ positivism

most free will. least free will (there are other outside factors)

Beccaria

• criminals have free will and are rational

• deterrence ⇒ to deter future behavior, punishment must have 3 components: swift, certain, and severe

  • swift (or celerity)

    • swiftness of societal response

    • assumes swift punishment has more of an impact than delayed punishment

  • certain

    • chances of being caught and punished

    • within the CJS, this includes the chances of being:

      • caught, charged, brought to trial, convicted, and sentenced

  • severe

    • punishments must be proportionate to ‘harm caused to society’

    • punishments must be severe enough or provide enough pain to offset the pleasure of the criminal acts

      • hedonistic calculus - assumes individuals rationally weigh the perceived benefits against the perceived costs of offending

• absence, or weakening, of any of the 3 erodes any deterrent effect (i.e., specific or general deterrence)

TYPES OF DETERRENCE

1. specific deterrence

   1. efforts that keep the individual offender from future offending

   2. assumes direct punishment will deter future illegal activity

2. general deterrence

   1. efforts that keep others (beyond the offender) from future offending

   2. assumes apprehension/punishment of offender — or indirect punishment — serves as a deterring example to others

EFFECTS OF DETERRENCE

• deterrence is the cornerstone of CJS and policies/programs

• swiftness of punishment

  • CJS has become exponentially overburdened and sluggish

• certainty of arrest and punishment (whether or not they do catch crimes when they occur)

  • some connection between certainty and lower crime rates, but

    • nature of the relationship is NOT totally clear

      • often confounded by the type of crime and other factors

    • often race/ethnicity-specific

• severity of punishment

  • capital punishment

    • weak to no empirical support

    • most homicides are not premeditated or rational

    • capital punishment sentences are not:

      • certain (i.e. racial/ethnic disparities and state-by-state variations)

      • swift (i.e. ~15 years from sentencing to execution)

deterrence has only a modest effect on crime (Pratt et al., 2006)

• certainty has greatest deterrent potential

• swiftness and severity hold little to no deterrent potential

  • severity has weakest deterrent effect

deterrence effects from experience and perceptions

NEOCLASSICAL THEORIES

• modern sociological/criminological theories are soft determinism

• crime opportunities and offending motivations produced by:

  • social and environmental factors (i.e. demographics, concentrated disadvantage, etc)

rational choice theory (cornish and clark, 1986)

• assumes crime and victimization is opportunistic and unplanned

• assumes rational decision-making

  • hedonistic calculus

  • offenders rely on pst observations and experiences

  • crime scripts

    • outlines steps and actions necessary for crime commission

    • developed over time through experience and prctice

      • once developed, scripts become second nature and require little conscious thought

• given this, offenders select targets:

  • low risk

  • high reward

  • minimal effort

empirical evidence

• offender makes rational choices about when, where, and how to offend

• offenders weigh anticipated risks and rewards of:

  • “premeditated” criminal offending

  • selection of targets/victims

bounded rationality

• decisions are rational to an extent, but are limited to:

  • information

  • prior experiences with similar situations

    • perceptions of effort associated with crime

    • crime scripts — second nature reactions, little conscious thought

gamblers fallacy u

routine activities theory (cohen and felson, 1979)

• normal, daily behavior contributes to crime opportunities

• crime opportunities occur at the convergence (think crime traingle)

  • motivated offender

  • suitable victim or target

  • and an absence of capable guardianship

situational crime prevention - Ron Clarke

• aimed at specific problems, places, persons, and times

• impact offenders’ perceptions through situational techniques

  • increasing their [criminal’s] effort to succeed

    • target hardening

      • locks, unbreakable glass, safes, and other secuirty devices

      • subway fare avoidance

    • access control

  • increase their risk

    • surveillance (i.e., natural, formal, and employee)

  • low rewards

• hot spots policing

  • hot spots ⇒ small areas where crime is frequent and highly predictable

    • high police presence, arrests/crackdowns

  • minneapolis hot spots policing experiment

    • 3% of city = 50% PD calls for service

  • operation ceasefire/boston gun project (1996)

    • deter gun homicides, target chronic offending gang youth — “pulling levers”

      • gang members were 1% of Boston youth = 60% youth homicide

    • pulling levers ⇒ they would bring youth gang members into local community centers and used scare as a method to prevent crime where access to plea bargains,

• crime prevention through environmental design (CPTEP)

  • efforts to alter the physical design of an area to impact crime

  • defensible space

    • image — appearance that area is:

      • not isolated

      • cared for

    • territoriality - sense of area ownership, recognize legitimate area users

      • real territoriality (i.e., walls, fences, and gates)

      • symbolic territoriality (i.e., signs and landscaping)

    • surveillance - ability to observe inside/outside activity

      • natural, formal (ability for law enforcement to maneuver) , and mechanical (think cameras)

  • displacement

    • crime moves

    • undesirable movement of crime(s) due to prevention/control method

      • from one geographic are to another

      • shift from one type of crime to another

  • diffusion of benefit

    • beneficial intervention effect outside of target area

      • spread to nearby areas

      • spread to other crime(s) and offenders

• crime pattern theory (brantingham and brantingham, 1993)

  • crime fits identifiable patterns

  • crime can be understood when we know where and when it occurs

  • though daily activities and movement, people construct and refine mental images or cognitive maps of environment

    • cognitive maps used to inform rtional behavior

• components:

  • nodes: centers of activity (i.e., residential, work, and commercial/recreational)

  • paths

    • transit routes between nodes

  • edges — prime sports for crime

    • physical edges may limit movement

    • social and economic edges reflect areas of potential crime due to 1. anonumity and 2. lack og guardianship

  • cognitive map ⇒ taking all the above info into a map