Deterrence Fails for The Irrational

Valerie Wright, Ph.D Research Analyst at the Sentencing Project, Deterrence in Criminal Justice, The Sentencing Project, November 2010, pg 2 One problem with deterrence theory is that is assumes that human beings are rational actors who consider the consequences of their behavior before deciding to commit a crime; however, this is often not the case. For example, half of all state prisoners were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their offence. Therefore, it is unlikely that such persons are deterred by either the certainty or severity of punishment because of their temporarily impaired capacity to consider the pros and cons of their actions.

Deterrence Fails For Irrational

Valerie Wright, Ph.D Research Analyst at the Sentencing Project, Deterrence in Criminal Justice, The Sentencing Project, November 2010, pg 2 Another means of understanding why deterrence is more limited than often assumed can be seen by considering [because of] the dynamics of the criminal justice system. If there was 100 per cent certainty of being apprehended for committing a crime, few people would do so. But since more crimes, including serious ones, do not result in an arrest and conviction, the overall deterrent effect of the certainty of punishment is substantially reduced.

Rehab is Cheaper and Stops Overcrowding

Valerie Wright, Ph.D Research Analyst at the Sentencing Project, Deterrence in Criminal Justice, The Sentencing Project, November 2010, pg 8 Incarceration is an expensive sanction and sentencing people to longer prison terms has resulted in valuable recourses being devoured. It is estimated that federal, state, and local governments are spending 68 billion annually. A recent economic analysis estimates that reducing the number of incarcerated non-violent offenders by half could save taxpayers 16.9 billion annually without putting public safety at risk. Non-violent drug offenders compromise a substantial percentage of the prison population and many studies have suggested that this number could be reduced if more treatment alternatives were available. While there are costs associated with treatment, research indicates that they[treatment costs] tend to be far lower than the costs associated with lengthy terms of incarceration that show little evidence of deterring future offenses. For example, a recent study showed that
spending on drug treatment in community-based programs versus incarceration yields a higher return on the investement while at the same time improving the life outcome of drug users. The study concluded that a dollar spent on treatment in prison yields about six dollars of savings, but

a dollar

investment in community-based treatment yield nearly 20 dollars in cost saving.

Punishment doesnt affect actions.

Paul Robinson, UPenn professor of law, Does criminal Law Deter?, oxford Journal of Legal studies, 2004, pg 173-205 Available evidence suggests that potential offenders as a group are people who are less inclined to think at all about the consequences of their conduct or to guide their conduct accordingly. Theey
often are risk-seekers, rather than risk-avoiders, and as a group are more impulsive than average. Further, conduct decisions commonly are altered by alcohol and drug intake. In

an astounding 66 per cent of those interviewed reported that recent drug use contributed to the commission of the crime. There are a number of other temporary states of mind that are likely to drive out rational considerations of punishment, such as desires for revenge or retaliation, and
Andersons sample, suddenly-induced rages or angers, the duration of which can extend from minutes to days. Other states of mind can be in place for longer durations and also can induce flawed

. For instance, paranoia-feeling that others are immediate and overwhelming threats- is kown ti cycle over the course of months. When it is acute, it is likely that the degree of [the] threat felt will override considerations of the deterrent weight of possible punishments.
reasoning

Bad Environment Overrides Effect of Law

Paul Robinson, UPenn professor of law, Does criminal Law Deter?, oxford Journal of Legal studies, 2004, pg 173-205 Crimes are often committed by groups. When offenders commit crimes in street gangs, for instance, several effects can temporarily reduce the possible impact of threatened future prison term on current law-breaking activities: an arousal effect leads to sprees and reduced sensitiv ity to risk, and an increase in the immediate rewards can arise from an increase in esteem in which the group holds the member who boldly breaks the law. He furthers, This means that the crime-prone individual, already disposed to downplay the long-term punishment consequences, has those around him expressing the same neglect of those consequences, thus reinforcing the decision to commit the crime. Interviews with criminals consistently show that the individual feels Led to the commission of the crime by the confidence that other gang members give them that they will not get caught.

Get Tough Policy has Led To An Increase In Crime

D. A. Andrews, Physchology professor at Carleton University, Rehabilitating Criminal Justice Policy and Practice, American Psychological Association, 2010, pg 39-50 Out of step in relation to the crime rate decreases, the incarceration rate continues to increase in the United States. From 1992 to 2007, the U.S incarceration rate grew from 505 per 100,000 to an estimated 756 per 100,000 (Walmsley, 2009). One out of 100 adults is behind bars in the United States with one in 15 African-American men and 1 in 36 Hispanic men in prison (Pew, 2008). Over 5 million adults are under some form of community supervision (Glaze and Bonczar, 2007). On the youth side of the criminal justice system, nearly 2.2 million juveniles were arrested in 2007 (Puzzanchera, 2009). The United States now has approximately 20 per cent of the worlds prison population (Walmsley, 2009). Getting tough on crime has become the major criminal justice policy in America

Retribution is currently valued above Rehab

D. A. Andrews, Physchology professor at Carleton University, Rehabilitating Criminal Justice Policy and Practice, American Psychological Association, 2010, pg 39-50 Over the past 35 years, the trend in dealing with criminal offenders [has] became increasingly harsh and punitive. The message was clear: offenders were not to be mollycoddled. The U.S Parole Commission and many states abolished their paroling authorities. Instead, parole was replaced with truth-in-sentencing legislation (Holt, 1998) and three strikes and your out laws (Turner, Greenwood, Chen, and Fain, 1999). Boot camps and Scared Straight programs sprung up throughout the United States and abroad. There were even calls to make probation as punishing as prison (Erwin, 1986, p.17). The rehabilitation of offenders, an important activity for many correctional psychologists, was devalued in favor of the get tough approach for dealing with offenders.

Meta- Analysis Rehab Works

D. A. Andrews, Physchology professor at Carleton University, Rehabilitating Criminal Justice Policy and Practice, American Psychological Association, 2010, pg 39-50 In 1989, Lipsey reviewed 400 treatment studies of juvenile delinquents, yielding 443 effect size estimates. He found that treatment, on average, had a ten per cent reduction on recidivism. However, when controls for methodological (e.g sample size, attrition) and treatment variables (e.g duration, evaluator involvement) were introduced, there was a 30 per cen reduction in recidivism. Since Lipseys (1989) landmark meta-analysis, 40 meta-analyses have confirmed the overall effectiveness of offender treatment (McGuire, 2004).

Prison worsens Criminals

Etienne Benson, Monitor Staff, Rehabilitate or Punish?, American Psychology, 2003, pg 46 When properly implemented, work programs, education and psychotherapy can ease prisoners' transitions to the free world, says Haney. Finally, researchers have demonstrated the power of the prison environment to shape behavior, often to the [is] detriment of both prisoners and prison workers. The Stanford Prison Experiment, which Haney co-authored in 1973 with Stanford University psychologist and APA Pastpresident Philip G. Zimbardo, PhD, is one example. It showed that psychologically healthy individuals could become sadistic or depressed when placed in a prison-like environment.
More recently, Haney has been studying so-called "supermax" prisons--high-security units in which prisoners spend as many as 23 hours per day in solitary

prisoners in supermax units [isolation] experience extremely high levels of anxiety and other negative emotions. When released--often without any "decompression" period in lower-security facilities--they have few of the social or occupational skills necessary to succeed in the outside world. Nonetheless, supermax facilities have become increasingly common over the past five to ten years. "This is what prison systems do under emergency circumstances--they move to punitive social control mechanisms," explains Haney. "[But] it's a very short-term solution, and one that may do more long-term damage both to the system and to the individuals than it solves."
confinement for years at a time. Haney's research has shown that many

Sneaky Fucking Definition of Rehabilitation

Dr. Clara Sandoval Villalba, Senior lecturer at the school of Law, University of Essex, Rehabilitation as a form of reparation under international law, REDRESS, December 2009, pg 10 The leading scholar on reparation Dinah Shelton defines Rehabilitation according to its objective and function. For her it is a right of all victims of serious abuse and their dependents. It is the process of restoring the individuals full health and reputation after the trauma of a serious [an] attack on ones physical or mental integrity. It aims to restore what has been lost. Rehabilitation seeks to achieve maximum physical and psychological fitness by addressing the individual, the family, local community and even the society as a whole.

Purpose of the Juvenile CJS IS Rehab

National Criminal Justice Reference Service, Administered by the Office of Justice Programs, Early in U.S history, children who broke the law were treated the same as adult criminals, https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/9912_2/juv1.html In the early juvenile courts, and even in some to this day, attorneys for the State and the youth are not considered essential to the operation of the system, especially in less serious cases. A range of dispositional options was
available to a judge wanting to help rehabilitate a child. Regardless of offense, outcomes ranging from warnings to probation supervision to training school confinement

. Dispositions were tailored to "the best interests of the child." Treatment lasted until the child was "cured" or became an adult (age 21), whichever came
could be part of the treatment plan first.

Social Environment Caused Crime

Benjamin Karpman, American Psychiatrist, criminal psychodynamics: a platform in Punishment and Rehabilitation, 131, The political and Individual Order, 2007 the criminal is a product of a vicious, emotionally unhealthy environment in the creation of which he had no hand and over which he had no control. In so far as society has done nothing to alleviate the developing anti-sociality of the child, it may be truly said that it deserves the criminals it has and that the criminal is societys greatest crime

Equality of Outcome
Lyndon Johnson,Professor at Harvard, To fulfill these rights, Wyzant, 1965, np You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates. This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result. Equality of opportunity has no grounding in real life and can be manipulated. Equality of outcome ensures equality.

American criminal Law Cares about Rational Intent

Samuel Pillsbury, Loyola Law School, The meaning of deserved punishment, Indiana Law Journal, 1992, p.727 American criminal law generally restricts its view of choice to the actor's immediate decision to do wrong. As long as the individual rationally and without coercion from an external source" chooses to do wrong, the actor may be blamed and punished. He furthers, The criminal law emphasizes rational mental processes. Its greatest concern is with intentions-the actor's mental attitude toward the wrong involved in his act. The law categorizes crime according to these attitudes the deliberation, purpose, knowledge, recklessness, or negligence of the criminal actor. The criminal law also requires that the actor be a rational chooser. In assessing criminal liability, we ask if the actor perceives the world and acts upon his perception in ways that the rest of us can readily accommodate to our own world view.