Laisse Faire Criminology
Of the many theories of crime, none is based on doing nothing. Every theory assumes that someone has a duty to act to punish wrongs or remediate harms or save the sinner. Traditional studies of victimology come closest to a laissez faire theory that problems in our social environment are only analogous to problems in our physical environment: we protect ourselves from the elements; but we do not seek to punish storms, either for their own good or as general deterrence to any other bad weather.
Altruism informs criminology. Even more than the golden rule, the parable of the Good Samaritan tells us all that we are our brother’s keeper. And no one is kept better than someone in prison.
When Sir Robert Peel formed the London Metropolitan Police Service in 1829, crime was a political problem defined by religion. Today, criminology resonates within sociology. A hundred years ago, Marxists criticized Max Weber in particular and sociology in general for being concerned only with church, family, and state. Today, those critical sociologists and critical criminologists define the content of most university programs: racism and sexism are caused by capitalism; end of story.
Even libertarians and objectivists who generally do not care what you smoke or with whom you sleep insist on the enforcement of property rights specifically as the punishment of those who violate the rights of others. Within those circles, self-identified “anarcho-capitalists” engage in long arguments with advocates of constitutionally limited government (“minarchy”) attempting to prove that a completely free market in protection and adjudication would still bring justice in the form of punishments to wrong-doers. No one says, “So what?”
That should seem peculiar. Is it not self-contradictory to claim that you are completely responsible for your own life unless you can complain about someone else? A completely consistent criminology based on individualism is centered on victimology: understanding your risks in society and taking preventive and preparatory actions to avoid losses.
Altruism has a range of definitions. Objectivists and libertarians cite the inventor of the word, Auguste Comte, and take him literally. Comte was a political Platonist who advocated for a secular civic priesthood to rule a common humanity that was united in complete concern for others – and no concern for self. Comte was explicit. Later philosophers softened this. After all, Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Self must come first before benevolence can be extended to others. Today, altruism is mere politeness and civility, common grace, and simple decency. That seems harmless enough.
But what happens when that fails?
I am a fan of public transportation and ride one or more buses to work or play most days. “Pardon me”, “excuse me”, and “sorry” are important acknowledgements of small harms. Criminal justice is based on the expectation of larger and more complicated apologies for harms of greater consequence.
We generally understand others as extensions, projections, reflections, or reiterations of ourselves. “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” assumes that others share your values. More deeply, it assumes that others think as you do – even that they think at all. Our propensity for copying the behaviors of others runs far deeper than “monkey see, monkey do.” In point of fact, researchers found that given a puzzle and a ritual, and later shown the short-cut, chimpanzees abandon useless actions, while humans repeat them for no apparent reason. Thus, everyone seems to be able to learn how to drive a car (or ride a bus), use a computer or a cell phone, and learn a foreign language. So, when you are harmed by someone else, you assume that like you they had no intention and having committed a transgression, they are remorseful, and cannot be content until they have rebalanced themselves with some propitiatiation.
Why?
And if that other person has no such inner needs, where do we find the motivation (“political right”) to redirect that person’s body, mind, and soul?
Why do we feel differently about losses caused by other people than we do about losses caused by storms? If we protect ourselves from nature, why do we not also protect ourselves from human nature?
Altruism informs criminology. Even more than the golden rule, the parable of the Good Samaritan tells us all that we are our brother’s keeper. And no one is kept better than someone in prison.
When Sir Robert Peel formed the London Metropolitan Police Service in 1829, crime was a political problem defined by religion. Today, criminology resonates within sociology. A hundred years ago, Marxists criticized Max Weber in particular and sociology in general for being concerned only with church, family, and state. Today, those critical sociologists and critical criminologists define the content of most university programs: racism and sexism are caused by capitalism; end of story.
Even libertarians and objectivists who generally do not care what you smoke or with whom you sleep insist on the enforcement of property rights specifically as the punishment of those who violate the rights of others. Within those circles, self-identified “anarcho-capitalists” engage in long arguments with advocates of constitutionally limited government (“minarchy”) attempting to prove that a completely free market in protection and adjudication would still bring justice in the form of punishments to wrong-doers. No one says, “So what?”
That should seem peculiar. Is it not self-contradictory to claim that you are completely responsible for your own life unless you can complain about someone else? A completely consistent criminology based on individualism is centered on victimology: understanding your risks in society and taking preventive and preparatory actions to avoid losses.
Altruism has a range of definitions. Objectivists and libertarians cite the inventor of the word, Auguste Comte, and take him literally. Comte was a political Platonist who advocated for a secular civic priesthood to rule a common humanity that was united in complete concern for others – and no concern for self. Comte was explicit. Later philosophers softened this. After all, Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Self must come first before benevolence can be extended to others. Today, altruism is mere politeness and civility, common grace, and simple decency. That seems harmless enough.
But what happens when that fails?
I am a fan of public transportation and ride one or more buses to work or play most days. “Pardon me”, “excuse me”, and “sorry” are important acknowledgements of small harms. Criminal justice is based on the expectation of larger and more complicated apologies for harms of greater consequence.
We generally understand others as extensions, projections, reflections, or reiterations of ourselves. “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” assumes that others share your values. More deeply, it assumes that others think as you do – even that they think at all. Our propensity for copying the behaviors of others runs far deeper than “monkey see, monkey do.” In point of fact, researchers found that given a puzzle and a ritual, and later shown the short-cut, chimpanzees abandon useless actions, while humans repeat them for no apparent reason. Thus, everyone seems to be able to learn how to drive a car (or ride a bus), use a computer or a cell phone, and learn a foreign language. So, when you are harmed by someone else, you assume that like you they had no intention and having committed a transgression, they are remorseful, and cannot be content until they have rebalanced themselves with some propitiatiation.
Why?
And if that other person has no such inner needs, where do we find the motivation (“political right”) to redirect that person’s body, mind, and soul?
Why do we feel differently about losses caused by other people than we do about losses caused by storms? If we protect ourselves from nature, why do we not also protect ourselves from human nature?
Evaluating prosecutors and defenders-
Performance indicators, very popular especially in government. Those in power want a quick measure of what is happening, some quick way to see if staff are doing well or not, so they get a few performance measures concocted. These may even be labeled pretentiously as key performance indicators. Invariably they are misleading. Too often these indicators are 'gamed'.
There is no substitute for understanding what you want to evaluate. Bu this is too much for politicians and for a good few outside government as well.
I propose compensating the victims and the taxpayers, not enriching the prison and the state.
with you to a very large extent. I have never killed
any being larger than a dog who chased our sheep,
and pray/hope/expect that I never will. the same
goes for my wife.
we are firm believers in deterrence. my "career"
was with weapons of the first order. hers was in
healthcare. we have ADT signs out front, and out
back. generally, there is someone awake in our home
24 hours a day.
though my wife and I discuss eventualities, we fear
deadly force. we do not relish any harm to any human.
we do, however, relish harm to us less than harm
to others.
some days, we favor the death penalty, thinking
that the culprit should face what was dealt to the
victim. we think of this as deterrence, especially
in this world of widespread information.
some days, we think that a lifetime behind bars
at something like $60k/year is a bargain, instead
of death. self-protection is the driver.
this whole subject, including Dagny as both heroine
and murderess, is difficult.
however incomplete our knowledge is, and
however amateur our judgment, we must decide
as we go. better us, than the lackadaisical and
ill-informed. -- j
I never did tell you how the bullying stopped in my case. It stopped with my family moving away.
I'll never forget the last day he ever laid a hand on me. I tried to retreat into my own yard--and he followed me into it.
That's when my mother came out and chased him out.
About five minutes later, I heard a loud cry from another adult woman's voice: "AND YOUR KID STARTS THINGS, TOO!"
My mother said, "I would not think of lowering myself to answer to you."
"WELL, GOOD! I'M GLAD YOU'RE MOVING [OUT]!"
"Well, you can imagine how glad I am about leaving."
Five minutes later, that same strident voice rang out--only this time it had a far different target:
"STAY AWAY FROM HIM!"
And again:
"STAY AWAY FROM HIM!"
After nearly four years of her and her husband insisting their son could do no wrong, it came to that.
But, as I said: after I left, he found other targets. But his pattern of behavior caught up with him in high school. No recommendation for college. So he was working factory jobs. And then one day he stole a car, got busted, and...
I do not have an easy answer. I do know that cases such as yours and hers cannot be the definitive norm for judicial process. It is statistically true that most perpetrators are _not_ sociopaths and can be realigned with their community or family - given that that is not some magical chanting, but actual work of restoration and reintegration.
Personally, I might suggest that a neighborhood council could start the process. Lacking a resolution because the sociopath cannot be turned around, then other engagements are needed. Here in Texas, the Rangers said, "Some men just need hanging." The problem is that you do not want a mob of ignoramuses hanging John Galt for being a warlock or wizard because he is "controlling lightening" and according to the Bible "you should not suffer a witch to live." Just sayin'... Each case must be judged _objectively_ and on its own merits.
Criminologist Robert Martinson is credited (or blamed) for the "nothing works" theory. (See the full story here:http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/rehab.html The snapshot is this:
"Robert Martinson's skepticism derived from his role in a survey of 231 studies on offender rehabilitation. Entitled, The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment: A Survey of Treatment Evaluation Studies ... His views were enthusiastically embraced by the national press, with lengthy stores appearing in major newspapers, news magazines and journals, often under the headline, "Nothing Works!"
Because of the controversy in 1976, the National Academy of Sciences appointed a Panel to re-evaluate the Lipton, Martinson, and Wilks survey. The Panel's findings were subject to wide interpretation, but central to its conclusion was the comment, "When it is asserted that 'nothing works,' the Panel is uncertain as to just what has even been given a fair trial.""
Because of the "nothing works mantra, rather than liberal progressive leniency, we have had 30+ years of conservative retribution. "On January 18, 1989, the abandonment of rehabilitation in corrections was confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Mistretta v. United States, the Court upheld federal "sentencing guidelines" which remove rehabilitation from serious consideration when sentencing offenders." -- ibid.
The "three strikes" policy has been abused to victimize otherwise harmless offenders. Having committed one crime, when charged later with two or more from one incident, that becomes three - regardless of the severity of the actual (or putative) crimes.
For most people, prison is pain. Most people suffer when removed from their families and communities. Further humiliation only provides publicity for others who approve of it. "Making liberals scream" does nothing for the original victims. Often, there are no victims, as most prisoners are arrested for victimless crimes. That raises another question entirely.
And then there was the next-door bully who knew no shame, and had no concept of "society" as any institution with rules he ought to obey.
Result: he added crime to crime, until at last he landed in prison for a lengthy sentence. For Grand Theft, Auto.
But that was after he broke my hand, then tried to break it again, and would make a habit of waylaying me for every imagined slight he got it into his head that I committed against him.
Reintegrate HIM into society? No. Forbid him fire or water within four hundred miles of me.
I suggest "laissez faire criminology" as a starting point. Rather than just jumping in to "do something" I think that whoever is calling for the jumping should first prove the need for doing _anything_. Some good has come from some "moral panics." The awareness of spousal abuse is an example of that. However, many "moral panics" - such as poisoned Halloween candy; missing children - were fallacious, overblown, or wrongly understood. ("Missing" kids are "kidnapped" by non-custodial parents.)
In discussing crime, we Objectivists and our conservative comrades posit a largely non-existent body of willing and planfully competent perpetrators who calculate to profit from victimizing the unwary. That does happen: shoplifting is a criminal occupation, a paying job contrary to law. However, overwhelmingly, crimes are perpetrated within communities and within families. Rather than removing the criminal, the better outcome is to re-integrate them into the community.
"Reintegrative Shaming: the Essence of Restorative Justice?" my paper for a graduate class in criminology theory here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2ZgcRq7...
(Let me know when you get to the part where the tribal decision was just to shoot the guy. it comes near the part where another tribe just beat the punk up, stripped him naked, and left him on the plains. Just sayin'... no absolutes here...)
If I had any license to revise the ending of Atlas Shrugged--to address the fate of Eddie Willers, whose eastbound Comet breaks down out of Flagstaff, Arizona, I would make this change:
Dan Conway takes John Galt's hint and organizes his own independent community. In this he has the cooperation of the sheriff of Maricopa County--the seat of which is, of course, Phoenix, Arizona, the southern end of the Phoenix-Durango RR.
So when Eddie gets word that the San Fran terminus of the TTRR has fallen into the hands of a warring faction now holding trains for ransom, Eddie sees that as a chance to escape. His plan is to desert the Comet in or near Phoenix. When the Comet doesn't even get that far, he persuades the wagon train that meets the Comet to drive eastward, toward Phoenix. Where Sheriff Joe is there to "process" them.
Of course, when AS came out, Joe Arpaio was still a kid, and Maricopa County did not have a Sheriff fit to lace up Joe Arpaio's boots. It's different now. Don't you suppose Sheriff Joe would also follow John Galt's lead, after listening to that speech?
Question: would you even have an age-of-consent statute? Does laissez-faire criminology even recognize a legal category called "minor": as in "sales of cigarettes to ~ are forbidden by law" or "contributing to the delinquency of" or "reckless endangerment of"?
"_Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World_ by Carolyn Nordstrom (University of California Press, 2007), brings home the special agony of Africa. Early on, she introduces us to Okidi, a boy of about nine who sells cigarettes – Marlboros most often – one-up in the wartorn outback of Angola. Okidi shows Nordstom the convenience store that fronts him.
―This is where I get my cigarettes.‖
―Do you have to buy them?‖
He shook his head no:
―The man gives me a packet, and when I have sold all of the cigarettes, I return to give him his share of the money, and get more.‖
The store proffers a wide range of convenience goods. Even the owner‘s Mercedes is for sale. The store faces an ad hoc open air market where an even wider variety of articles, including pharmaceuticals and art, can be had in a place where, paradoxically, no one has any money.
...
The convenience store was momentarily unattended and Nordstrom waited to meet and interview the owner. Inside was an open bucket for cash as people bought small items on the honor system..."
As for crimes of passion, I believe that if you catch your wife sleeping with another man and kill her a month later, you did not premeditate the murder but only stayed mad for a month: _mens rea_ does not apply. (Not that I approve of killing people for infidelity, but just saying, so-called "premeditated" murders often are not.)
The question of fundamental motives is individual. You say that the threat of punishment stops "us" but really you only said that it stops you. Other people have other motives. Empathy is an easy one: you would no more hurt another person than you would harm yourself. (At least, some people say so about themselves...)
(See here http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/W... about page 10.)
This happens in New York, Boston, etc - just google "witness found dead." But "failed state" is a crime that dares not hear its name. In other words, if the police cannot protect witnesses, then they have lost their mandate and a higher authority needs to take over and rebuild that government. And that never (seldom) happens.
"OCTOBER 13, 1994
Officer Len Davis caught on tape ordering a hit on a civilian
New Orleans resident Kim Marie Groves witnesses Officer Davis beating up a neighborhood teenager and files a formal complaint with the police. Within hours, a colleague tells Davis about Groves' allegations. The next night Groves is shot dead in front of her house. Davis had planned her hit -- it was inadvertently recorded by federal officials who are investigating a cocaine ring involving Davis."
"For much of the 19th century after the American Civil War, the state of Mississippi used a convict lease system for its prisoners; lessees paid fees to the state and were responsible for feeding, clothing and housing prisoners who worked for them as laborers. As it was lucrative for both the state and lessees, as in other states, the system led to entrapment and a high rate of convictions for minor offenses for black males, whose population as prisoners increased rapidly in the decades after the war. Wrongly accused of having a high rate of criminality, black males often struggled for years to get out of the convict lease system." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi...
I agree that the perpetrator needs to repay the victim, but for most victims, money is usually not so important as contrition.
Realize that we do have socially approved outlets for those who lack empathy and compassion. People who can kill without remorse can find places in the police and military. So, the answer you get depends on whom you ask.
With that caveat, even in combat, it is not the fear of one's own death, but the taking of other lives that is commonly reported as hard to get over.
If you wake up and someone is in your home, your choices are greatly limited and you did not bring the victim to yourself. Generally, a planfully competent burglar never meets the occupant because the perpetrator acts when the place is available. However, with drugs and stupidity being common, bad things happen to bad people.
But it is not something to look forward to as apparently many gun lovers seem to. They, too, are criminals looking for an available victim.
One more case: In one of my criminology classes, we saw a video against capital punishment. One of the interview subjects was the warden of a prison. He was a good old boy with a pot belly and a missing tooth. After two executions, he quit. The victims may have been fully deserving of the justice, but carrying out the sentence was emotionally taxing.
To me, that speaks to "laissez faire" as the lesser of two evils. It may be better not to execute people, regardless of what they have done, because the act only creates more victims.
Statistically, most people are harmed by people in their own social groups. Career criminals do exist, of course, but even so, by population female burglars (who are rare) tend to predate on _other_ neighborhoods, whereas male burglars victimize their own neighbors. That is true in _every_ neighborhood. The richest communities in America have local burglars.
We here in the Gulch, and educated people generally, just assume that "everyone" has the same cognitive skills we do. Many do not. Getting perpetrators to _choose to think_ (focus their attention) goes a long way toward changing their reflexive and unreflective behaviors.
At the same time that I worked as a campus safety officer, I served on the local community corrections board. So, I got two views of the Saturday sessions where a local (private) agency ran "moral reconition" groups. Basically, perpetrators are guided by group discussions to understand the limits of the behaviors that put them in jail in the first place.
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