Accountability is considered important to most people involved in criminal justice, and people often say they "believe in punishment." Popular psychology focuses on the role of "carrots and sticks" as mechanisms for regulating the world. Although individual people are too complex to fit neatly into any system of external penalties and rewards, the fact that corporations and business entities often respond quite well to incentives stands as a challenge to those seeking a more rational system of justice.
This research page explores accountability and punishment as it applies to crime. It is divided into the following sections:
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GENERAL
The question of whether, and how, legal punishment can be justified is central to both legal and political philosophy: what could justify a state in using the apparatus of the law to inflict burdensome sanctions on its citizens? Radically different answers to this question are offered by consequentialist and by retributivist theorists -- and by those who seek to combine consequentialist with retributivist considerations in ?mixed? theories of punishment; an important strand in recent theorising has been the idea of punishment as a communicative enterprise. Meanwhile, abolitionist theorists argue that we should aim to replace legal punishment rather than to justify it. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy More ...
In our society's criminal justice system, justice equals punishment. You do the crime, you do the time. You do the time, you've paid your debt to society and justice has been done. But justice for whom? Certainly not the victim. More ...
General prevention ought to be the chief end of punishment, as it is its real justification. If we could consider an offence which has been committed as an isolated fact, the like of which would never recur, punishment would be useless. It would be only adding one evil to another. But when we consider that an unpunished crime leaves the path of crime open not only to the same delinquent, but also to all those who may have the same motives and opportunities for entering upon it, we perceive that the punishment inflicted on the individual becomes a source of security to all. Jeremy Bentham 1830 More ...
The punishment motive is the flip side of the profit motive. Altruists oppose both. On the altruist premise, any punishment severe enough to deter anyone from anything is an engine of immorality: it makes men selfish. Therefore, if punishment cannot be entirely abolished, it should be watered down to impotence. Now we can understand the actual meaning of the mantra that punishment does not deter. That mantra, which seems to be merely a false statement of fact, is actually a moral principle, derived from the premise of altruism. It really means that punishment should not deter, that it must not be allowed to deter. No wonder leftists casually dismiss all evidence that men are deterred by punishment: it is irrelevant to their actual doctrine. More ...
In an investment game with shared profits, players punish those who do not contribute to the group's good, despite the personal cost. The emotional satisfaction of dispensing justice seems to spur them on: "People say, 'I like to punish'," says Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich. The fear of being fined keeps potential defectors in line, and the power to punish gives willing cooperators a sense of security. These dynamics may explain why early humans banded together into cooperative groups for hunting or warfare. More ...
ADULT ACOUNTABILITY
Today, there is a very tough retributivistic element in almost all prison systems. Consider the mandatory sentencing laws. Our tradition is to give judges a lot of discretion in sentencing, but people felt many judges were too lenient. So laws were passed that require very strict minimum sentencing. For instance, there used to be signs in convenience stores saying, 'If you rob this convenience store with a pistol you will serve a minimum of 5 years in prison.' This states that this crime has a mandatory sentence; it has a deterrent aspect but is very tough retributivistically as well. How effective are modern punishment tactics in a society that produces career criminals who serve their time in facilities deemed correctional, but commit the same crime the day of their release? More ...
the strongest argument, I believe, is an extension of the view that no one should be allowed to profit from harm s/he has done others. The actual principle I have in mind is: We ought, as much as possible, to increase the amount of deserved good and deserved joy and contentment in the world, and we ought, as much as possible, to reduce the amount, not only of bad or evil, but of undeserved happiness. We ought to be trying to increase, or at least keep, the balance of deserved happiness over ill and evil, and over undeserved happiness. To that end, anyone who is imminently about to cause, or who has already caused, suffering and sorrow, may have, or should have, at least that much joy and contentment taken from him/her. More ...
Civilized men now insist that criminals cannot always be reformed even by the most ingenious instruments of torture. It is known that some convicts repay the smallest acts of kindness with the sincerest gratitude. Some of the best people go so far as to say that kindness is the sunshine in which the virtues grow. Robert Green Ingersoll 1891 More ...
The revolution is taking place inside Jail No. 7, an unimposing two-story building in the coastal hills south of San Francisco, and Jail No. 8, a sleek concatentation of curves and glass tucked up against Highway 101 known as the "glamor slammer." To the staff, however, they are "program facilities," and the 700-odd cons inside, who are doing time for everything from drug possession to armed robbery, are "clients." Instead of passing their time staring at their cell walls, the inmates mostly stay in open dormitories and spend up to 12 hours each day in some of over 50 separate treatment, counseling, training, and education programs. More ...
?Crime? What crime? Killing a foul, noxious louse, that old moneylender, no good to anybody, who sucked the life-blood of the poor, so vile that killing her ought to bring absolution for forty sins ? was that a crime?" (Raskolnikov) Here, Raskolnikov visits his mother asking her to pray for him and warning her about his soon departure. Then he talks to his sister about suffering and confessing the crime. He wishes her ?good bye? and leaves to Sonia?s. It is obvious that Raskolnikov, deep down his soul, decided to confess his crime. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
Scholars also ask which provides the greater deterrent, certainty or severity of punishment? One provocative study involving prisoners and college students came down firmly on the side of certainty. When tested, both groups responded in virtually identical terms. Prisoners could identify their financial self-interest in an experimental setting as well as students could. However, in their decision making, prisoners were much more sensitive to changes in certainty than in severity of punishment. In terms of real-world application, the authors of the study speculate that long prison terms are likely to be more impressive to lawmakers than lawbreakers. Supporting evidence for this viewpoint comes from a National Academy of Sciences panel which claimed that a 50 percent increase in the probability of incarceration prevents about twice as much violent crime as a 50 percent increase in the average term of incarceration. More ...
Nursing home patients have been dragged down hallways, doused with ice water, sexually assaulted and beaten in their beds, yet few prosecutions have resulted, a congressional investigation found. (CBS)More ...
YOUTH ACCOUNTABILITY
Do delinquents grow from lack of discipline? Or from too much discipline? Dr. Alan Button reports, "This, it now appears is the wrong question. We should be asking about sequence. Parents of delinquents, all of them, report physical beating in the first ten to twelve years of the child's life, but rarely thereafter. They "wash their hands" of the kid because "nothing works." Then the judge, finding that the boy has no supervision, denounces permissiveness. Dr. Ralph Welsh who has given psychological examinations to over 2,000 delinquents, has developed what he calls. "The Belt Theory of Juvenile Delinquency." Dr. Welsh tells us: "The recidivist male delinquent who has never been exposed to the belt, extension cord or fist at some time in his life is virtually non-existent. As the severity of corporal punishment in the delinquent's developmental history increases, so does the probability that he will engage in a violent act." More ...
If "non-aversive" (without punishment) methods are better, quicker and more efficient, why are we not seeing them in every classroom in the country? Just the opposite is true. In fact nearly all classrooms use some variation of the biggest punishment-based system of all - (the one where the game is to see how many times your name gets on the board and how many checks get next to it before you are out the door). Those who are concerned with violence and aggression in our schools should look to one of the big causes - the wide-spread use of punishment - based management systems. How can we, who are so genuinely concerned about children and America's future allow such systems to persevere? More ...
CHILD DISCIPLINE
Punishment is only one method of disciplining, and corporal punishment is only one aspect of punishment. In analyzing the effects of punishment on children's behavior, Ross Parke (1972) has discussed much of the research and its implications. He found that punishment is less effective in facilitating learning and resisting the disapproved behavior the longer the punishment is delayed. As expected, severe punishment is more effective than less intense stimuli. Whereas high intensity punishment was found to be equally effective early or late, the less intense method was more effective when applied early than later. In other words, a less aversive punishment is more effective when it is used immediately following the maladjusted behavior than it would be if time were allowed to pass. More ...
Spanking may relieve a parent's frustration for the moment and extinguish the undesirable behavior for a brief time. But it is the least effective way to discipline. The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly opposes striking a child. If the spanking is spontaneous, parents should later explain calmly why they did it, the specific behavior that provoked it, and how angry they felt. They might apologize to their child for their loss of control, because that usually helps the youngster understand and accept the spanking. )More ...
Many children are hit often. Frequency for children in two-parent families has often been underestimated because data has been collected from only one parent. Recent UK research8 collected data separately from children's mothers and fathers and showed that the physical punishments two parents hand out are additive and closely correlated. The child whose mother hits her once a week is likely also to be hit weekly by her father. From the child's perspective it is the combination of maternal and paternal punitive actions that is important.... Focus on only one parent's actions will often lead to a poor estimation of the extent to which children in two-parent families experience physical violence. In particular it will lead to underestimation when an individual parent is identified as a frequent, severe or abusive punisher, for the child is in fact likely also to be experiencing high levels of punishment from the other parent. )More ...
When we wrote the original version of this essay in 1995, it started with the prediction: "The restriction of parents hitting their children is expected to become one of the main topics of debate between religious conservatives and liberals during the next decade." This appears to be coming to pass. Looking at the broader picture of state sanctioned violence, we see that it is gradually decreasing. More ...
It is estimated that corporal punishment is administered between 1 and 2 million times a year in schools in the United States. Increasingly, states are abolishing corporal punishment as a means of discipline, but statutes in some states still allow school officials to use this form of discipline. The American Academy of Pediatrics believes that corporal punishment may affect adversely a student's self-image and school achievement and that it may contribute to disruptive and violent student behavior. More ...
Corporal punishment: formal punishments for adults and youths, in the majority of cases usually applied to the posterior, but references to strapping on the hands (as in some schools in Canada and formerly in Scotland) and flogging on the upper back - factual information and opinions on all sides of the argument More ...
A correlation between suffering corporal punishment and later aggression by the boys spanked has been documented for some time. The more he has received corporal punishment, for example, the more likely it is that a boy will hit his spouse when he grows up and marries. But does this connection demonstrate that corporal punishment causes a boy to become more aggressive, or is it simply those boys who are temperamentally more aggressive and challenging as children drive their parents to use corporal punishment because nothing else works? More ...
Almost all individuals are physically punished, yet only a fraction ever develop deviant, violent behavior. However, this fact does not, by itself, merit dismissal of physical punishment as a potentially important variable. To appreciate the potential contribution of near-universal variables such as physical punishment, it is important to distinguish between necessary and sufficient preconditions. More ...
It is common for parents to get frustrated with their children and yell at them. "If you do that one more time I'm going to whip you, young man! "I've told you a thousand times. If I have to tell you once more...." Threats are bad because they insult children. They are likely to make the child feel dumb and put-down. The child may feel angry with the parent for treating him that way. Threats are also bad because they may tell the children that we yell a lot but we never do anything. More ...
When a parent depends to a great extent on disapproval and punishment as the means of dealing with their child's unacceptable behavior, a long-term process of building anger within the child takes place. Gradually and imperceptibly, over a period of years, angry feelings are growing and competing with loving feelings for control of the child?s personality. The parent remains unaware that there is anything to be concerned about because outwardly, in response to punishment, the child is behaving dutifully, and is gradually eliminating all the ways in which "poorly trained" children act. But after years in a "latency" period, the irrational anger that has been accumulating comes to outweigh the power of loving feelings to restrain them. When this occurs, the outward behavior of the child changes radically. A typical delinquent picture then emerges, reflecting the intense angry feelings "inside." Even at this point it cannot be said that the child does not love his parents. He still loves them and at times may act very lovingly. But the angry feelings predominate and determine the major portion of the child's behavior. The change from good to bad behavior is often sudden, occurring most frequently when the child approaches adolescence. For this reason, parents are likely to blame the change on chance coincidences, not recognizing that they are witnessing the fruition of a lifelong process. Some parents review their own behavior and conclude that they had not been punitive enough, believing that if they had just been tougher, they would have gained complete control over the child's bad impulses. And some people blame drugs, as if the use of drugs, rather than being symptomatic of a person "sick" with rage, had caused the child's behavior to change. More ...
To support our argument that children can't learn well while being spanked or otherwise harshly punished/disciplined and therefore feeling threat or pain ("alarm reaction"), consider the following information related by Dr. Richard Weinberg (Director of the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development): It is understood now in the medical profession that for 15-20 minutes after being told they have cancer or other serious condition, patients' anxiety, fear, etc. is so great that they simply do not or cannot hear/comprehend whatever is explained to them about prognosis, alternative treatments, immediate steps. This is so commonly understood that (good) doctors routinely schedule another consultation very soon and repeat all that was reviewed at the initial revelation.More ...
In a famous experiment by Shenger-Krestovnika, published in 1921, a dog was trained to salivate to a circle but not to an ellipse. The ellipse was then made progressively more like a circle. When the ratio of the axes of the ellipse was reduced to 9:8, the dog could discriminate it from a circle only with great difficulty. It showed some signs of success on this problem for about three weeks, but then its behavior was disrupted. It was unable to respond correctly not only on this difficult task, but also when presented with obvious ellipses and circles that had given it no trouble in the earlier part of the experiment.... our entire educational system, as it exists today, is based on this type of learning! Children daily are asked by teachers to make discriminations that they cannot make, and when they make a mistake, they are punished! ... When kids ask their parents "Why am I being spanked," the parent invariably responds "For Your Own Good," which is the title of one of her books. It is a contradiction of terms and concepts! You don't say to a child "I love you," and then give the child a whack! It is entirely inconsistent! Any young kid can tell you that! More ...
BOOKS, MOVIES, COURSES
