Robbed From Snaar’s Mind..
What you are about to read below is Snaar’s philosophical question of the day…
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Quote: Snaars There was some heated discussion in my philosophy of law class today regarding the relative merits or lack thereof of punishment within our criminal justice system. Turns out that all the evidence gathered through two hundred years of social science have shown that the threat of punishment does not deter crime. One student asked how we could possibly know that the threat of punishment does not deter crime, since if it did the only evidence would be the lack of a crime being committed, which is something we can’t measure. No one had the facts and statistics at their disposal, but the student was assured that the question has been studied thoroughly and it is the belief of social scientists that threat of punishment does not deter crime. Another student claimed that violent crime seems to be committed only by irrational people, so it made sense that punishment would not deter that kind of person – to which it was replied that perhaps the student thought we should put in jail anyone who could not pass a critical thinking test? It was also replied that white collar crime actually harms the most people – not violent crime – and yet the focus of our criminal justice system is and has always been violent crime. Someone else piped up and said that of course punishment deters crime, since people in jail can’t commit a crime. But this missed the point, since we were talking about recitivism rates – assuming that these people are not in jail for life but will be released at some point. It was assumed that the purpose of jailing criminals is to ‘reform’ them (although there is good reason to think that this seldom or never happens – and when it does, it’s probably a fluke). Also, it was asserted, prison produces criminals – it hardens people, puts them in the center of a criminal culture, etc. All in all it seems our punishment system is in desperate need of reform. We have a higher percentage of people in our prison system than any other culture throughout history has ever had. One thing I heard in the discussion that I had never heard before. It turns out that punishment is the least effective method of behavior modification. Just a little more effective is reward. The very best system involves intermittent rewards. People will work the hardest if there is a chance – not an assurance, just a chance – of being rewarded for it. I was thinking of a (very informal) thought experiment. The experiment is just a kind of survey, to see whether or not people would intuitively agree that this kind of reward system could be effective.Here’s the experiment: Traffic is becoming increasingly problematic in America’s cities and on our highways. Drivers who speed or are negligent in obeying ordinary traffic laws are both annoying and dangerous. The technology now exists to put in place a monitoring system by which the government can know if a person has violated traffic laws and regulations – and the police do not even have to be involved. For instance, a camera can take a photo of a car as it runs illegally through a red light, and the offender can get a traffic ticket through the mail. It doesn’t seem fair though, to punish people for every single instance in which they make a mistake, as though we were robots and should never make one. So, instead of having a system of punishments for violators – why not have a system of intermittent rewards? People who commit infractions could receive warnings. (Maybe if they are chronic offendors, they should pay some sort of fine. In this case we would be subscribing to a system of intermittent rewards combined with intermittent punishments.) Those who commit no offenses would be entered into a lottery, with winners drawn monthly. Winners would receive a reward, say $1000. So, the question is … do you think you would be effectively motivated to drive safely if you knew there was a chance you could win a monetary award for doing so? Notice that the question is about you personally, not about whether you think the system would work on other people or the population in general. |
March 16th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
The only reason i think it won’t work is the funding for such an initiative. Do we tax the people more and then create a storehouse of this money to dish out in payment for their good deeds? Is it Government’s role to reward the good for being good? Let us think about how reward systems work now. We reward children for perfect attendence. We reward workers in the oil field industry for not having any accidents. Does that make it so that the children attend school more? Does that make the oil field workers less reckless? I doubt it. Children will miss school any chance they get, if their parents will allow them to. Oil field workers will be reckless whenever they feel like doing it, regardless of the consequences. In Fact, in the oil field industry recklessness is very rare. Accidents usually happen when people are forced to do something and the mechinery fails in some way. I think the majority of humanity is such that they will do what they will do regardless of the consequences or rewards. Now let us turn this topic on it’s side. We institute a big brother scenario where as soon as you step outside of your house you are being watched. Any infraction you comit will be recorded and analyzed and a decision will be made as to whether or not you get your ticket or not. 1) What information should you use to make the decision(you state repetitive abuse as one but what other factors should play?)? Financial ability? What about the reason behind the infraction, i.e. you were rushing to get to work, wife’s pregnancy, courthouse to try a case, etc.? What about other criminal infractions? 2) (Just a consequence)This would drastically reduce the need for police officers. I can’t think of any other responses right now. I’m a lot busier here then i thought i would be. just ideas.
March 16th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
Intermitant rewards. Yes and No. Yes I would drive safely because I already try to drive safely because of the definite reward of not being killed and arriving at my intended destination. I dont believe I would drive safely because it leaves open the option to break the rules. Punishment or threat of punishment does motivate me to follow rules I consider oppressive. An example of this would be the law to force drivers to wear a seatbelt. The notion that I will be allowed grace mistakes or driving mishaps provides me with an oppurtunity to exploit those grace periods. I think this is true for most people. We already push the boundaries on a daily basis. Driver tend to drive just over the speed limit. Some drive under 10 miles over the speed limit. They are breaking the law and realize that they could be fined, but the punishment to occurrence ratio is small. People realize that police cannot be everywhere and are generally not concerned with small infractions of the law. If the punishment was relaxed, it would be present an oppurtunity for drivers to become more reckless. An example which convinces me that punishment works is the small town of Maurice. Few people speed through Maurice. The police officers on a daily basis pull drivers over for going 2-3 mph over the speed limit. As drivers who are familiar with the town come near the city limits, they stomp on their breaks and slow down to 40. Some have told me they now drive 35mph through Maurice, just in case. If the officers were told to only warn drivers of driving too fast and not give them tickets, drivers would abandon the caution they use while driving through Maurice. Would intermittent rewards work to reduce traffic problems? No, it would not because most accidents are accidents. Humans make mistakes and when a large amount of humans are put in metal machines which cruise at 40-75mph down streets, mistakes become large accidents. My solution to the traffic problems would be to take the technology and use it to guide vehicles through major cities. Drivers would surrender control of their vehicles upon entering city limits. They would program their destination into the in dash computer and their vehicle would be guided to the destination by a central computer network throughout the city. Would intermittent rewards reduce the populations of our prisons? I cannot conceive of a way to create an intermittant reward which does not reduce the signifigance of committing the crime. Extreme example: Murder — Do we reward people for not murdering someone? What is that implying? We live in a society that looks at murder as an aborration. If we provide a reward for not doing it, the reward would reduce the signifigance of commiting the crime. People would weigh the reward with the crime. If the reward was not overwhelming, then the crime would be diminished. “Dont kill anyone for a year and get a chance to win a trip to Hawaii!” A human life becomes equal to a trip to Hawaii. “Damn, I lost my chance to enter the sweepstakes for the trip. I had to kill my girlfriend yesterday.” The reason our prisons are being overpopulated is not because we inherently are becoming a more criminal based society, but that our population is increasing and laws concerning drug use have become stricter with heavier penalties for repeat offenders. Most of the inmates in prison are drug users or drug “pushers”. (I would argue that most drug pushers are actually users with a signifigance [as far as law enforcement is concerned] amount of their favourite drug.) How would intermittent rewards help to eliminate this problem? Wilbur PS sorry for grammatical problems, logic fallacies and anything else which may offend you, the reader.
March 16th, 2005 at 11:46 pm
Please understand I was not putting forward the traffic thing as a suggestion for what should actually take place. It’s just a hypothetical – a basis for discussion (which seems to have worked).