[eternaltriangle]

	Originally Posted by Sylvanus To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	My objective is to reduce crime. Namely by making the penalty severe enough that the average person would consider the possibility of getting caught not worth the risk.

1. This assumes people are rational actors. At the risk of offending my economics professors in undergrad... people are not rational!

2. This encourages people to go further in their resistance to arrest, possibly stealing or killing more in the process.

3. You are ignoring the possibility that harsher prisons will make prisoners less likely to be reformed.

Your objective a priori socially INefficient, because it does not consider the welfare of all members of society, which include prisoners (who hopefully will one day be productive members of society... instead of messed up psychopaths driven mad by solitary confinement). The purpose of all laws should be to maximize the welfare of society. Minimizing crime (and if minimizing crime is all you care about, why not get rid of due process, and just accuse everybody that looks at me cock-eyed) represents a subset of societal objectives - which cannot exclude criminals, who are still members of society.

Of course, this argument is meaningless without data. Do better prison conditions (or better conditions relative to the general public) reduce or raise crime?

[merid]

	1. This assumes people are rational actors. At the risk of offending my economics professors in undergrad... people are not rational! 2. This encourages people to go further in their resistance to arrest, possibly stealing or killing more in the process.

But you are taking a rational take on what you would do when confronted with harsher sentencing. In a death penalty state does a murderer really try to kill police officers on arrest?

[eternaltriangle]

	Originally Posted by merid To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	But you are taking a rational take on what you would do when confronted with harsher sentencing. In a death penalty state does a murderer really try to kill police officers on arrest?

Okay, so at the very least, you accept my first argument - deterrence doesn't work, and you have lost the argument.

These two ideas are not as mutually exclusive as you imply. The crime is often an act of passion - the escape is not. People can do irrational things (eg. murder) very rationally - suicide bombers calculate the most effective way for them to commit suicide. Because people are procedurally rational, they may be more likely to kill police officers, if they think they are likely to die (or serve time in horrible prisons). This is not likely to affect their calculus, if they get really mad one day and shoot somebody for sleeping with their wife, or itchy on their trigger finger while dealing drugs.

[merid]

But we are not talking about the rationailty of punishment. Where have I said or implied that harsher sentencing doesn't work? Also notice that my harsher punishment idea is not applicable to all, those that want to better themselves can.