Deterrence Essay what is it and does it work Week 6 PDF

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this is about how deterrence works in the criminal justice system. It also discusses if deterrence works and what types of deterrence there are...

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Deterrence

Samantha Angell Collage of Humanities and Social Services, Grand Canyon University JUS-104 Linda Estrada June 6, 2021

2 Deterrence Deterrence is when the act of a crime or bad behavior is dissuaded by fear of punishment. In the United States they try to make the punishments for crimes match the crimes that they do. Deterrence is made up of celerity, certainty, and severity. Celerity refers to the timespan between the offense and the delivery of punishment. The shorter the time span the bigger the effect. Certainty refers to the how likely the chance that the person who commits to a crime will be caught for that crime. Severity refers to the amount of punishment relative to the gain (Deterrence 2002). This essay explains general deterrence, specific deterrence and if deterrence even works. General Deterrence General deterrence means that if a person watches another getting punished for an action or crime then the first person is less likely to commit the action of the second. When someone is pulled over by a police officer, others are going to slow down and pay attention to what is going on around them (Deterrence 2002). Someone must be punished as an example in order for everyone else to benefit from that experience for general deterrence to work. This is also with how we have public court systems. Another example of this happening would be with siblings. When one sibling does something wrong, the parents make sure that the whole family knows about it and what is going to happen to the one who messed up or anyone who did the same. Specific deterrence is a different form of deterrence. Specific Deterrence Specific deterrence means that a person is being discouraged from committing a crime for a second time, because they had been caught and punished for a crime before. That person has to think about the crime and punishment and decide not to commit another crime (Deterrence

3 2002). With this it is more about the individual than a group. All punishment is aimed to give possible criminals a reason not to commit a crime (Lee 2017). Does deterrence even work? Should it be continued? Does Deterrence Work The policy in the United States is to prevent crime by providing harsh sentencing. To be effective the deterrence needs to fit the crime without being too lenient or too harsh. The thing about the turns is a person has to think about the consequences before the action to work. If a person is not being logical and thinking about the consequences then deterrence is not going to work, they will commit the crime and have to deal with the consequences. Deterrence is more effective if they are likely to be caught committing this crime (Darley 2005). Any part of prison life can be part of deterrence by taking into consideration any factors that would make being imprison harder (Jonson & Jonson 2010). It is important not only that they get punished for their crime put that they get help to better themselves so they do not need to commit said crime. Conclusion Both types of deterrents come into play general and specific but not always does deterrents work. General deterrence is more about showing others what happens when you commit a crime. Specific deterrence specializes on a singular person. The flaw with deterrence is that no two people are the same, so there will always be a wide range of what deterrents work for one person from the next. It is always a good idea to place yourself in a good situation so that you can be aware of what is going around you and to think before we act.

4 References Darley, J.M. (2005). On the unlikely prospect of reducing crime rates by increasing the severity of prison sentences. Journal of Law and Policy, 13(1), 189-207. Retrieved from https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1268&context=jlp Deterrence. (2002). In S. Phelps (Ed.), World of Criminal Justice, Gale. Gale. Credo Reference: https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login? url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/worldcrims/deterrence/0? institutionId=5865 Jonson, C. L., & Jonson. (2010). Incarceration and recidivism. In F. T. Cullen, & P. Wilcox (Eds.), Encyclopedia of criminological theory. Sage Publications. Credo Reference: https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login? url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/sagect/incarceration_and_recidivism/ 0?institutionId=5865 Lee, H.-W. (2017). Taking Deterrence Seriously: The Wide-Scope Deterrence Theory of Punishment. Criminal Justice Ethics, 36(1), 2–24. https://doiorg.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/0731129X.2017.1298879 Legal Dictionary. (2017). Deterrence. Retrieved from https://legaldictionary.net/specificdeterrence/...