I’m in the middle of a trial involving a shootout in broad daylight on a street corner in a bad neighborhood. The two shooters were drug dealer fighting over control of the “turf.” One of the drug dealers was on parole at the time of the shooting. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for him, he was wearing a GPS ankle monitor when he did the crimes. I brought in several parole agents as witnesses and discussed the case with them. One of them said something that struck me.
He said that criminals, and gangsters in particular, are very respectful with parole agents. “They know that we can send them back to prison real quick.” For that reason, they never give these agents any problems. It was clear to me, and maybe to you, that this agent believes that the gangsters were respectful because they wanted to avoid a return to prison.
By contrast, the defendant in my case was not respectful. Specifically, he was involved in two shootouts in a busy pedestrian intersection that left four people shot. The GPS device did not affect his decision, on two occasions, to commit violent crimes. This is despite the fact that the GPS was recording his location every minute, with the aid of satellites and atomic clocks.
So what lessons may be drawn? It is not someone watching the parolee that keeps him on good behavior. In some ways, the GPS watches more closely and in more detail than an agent can. It’s the deterrent threat of going to prison that keeps a parolee on good behavior. If the parolee is out of the agent’s view, if he is able to conceal a crime from the agent, he is not deterred, even if he is on GPS.
It’s a reminder of a simple fact. Imposing consequences for bad actions can change behavior. The consequences should be immediate, logically related to the bad behavior, and proportional. The more certain the consequence, the deterrent effect it has. This is true for parolees, for your kids, and even for you and me. I’m much less likely to burp at the dinner table if that means my wife will get up and leave. Your child will clean their room if you refuse to let them watch TV until its’ done.
It may be unnecessary to cite to the research, because this point is so obvious, but here goes nothing. Across domains, the claim that consequences can change behavior is strongly supported by the research. In the criminal justice context, increasing the perceived likelihood of being caught, consequences, and police presence all produce deterrent effects.
Why am I writing about such an obvious point, verging on a platitude? Because this basic concept, that consequences deter bad behavior, is almost completely absent from our public discourse around crime. That discourse is focused entirely on fixing crime by first fixing the “root causes,” meaning everything else that is wrong in society. The criminal is considered not to be a rational actor, but the predetermined product of his environment, despite the vast majority of his friends and neighbors that do not turn to violence. Therefore, like a patient at a doctor’s office, the discourse centers on how to treat his affliction for his own benefit, rather than how to deter him from violence for everyone else’s benefit.
So consider this little note an effort to inject a very simple fact back into the conversation. Consequences can prevent bad behavior. And that benefits everyone, the prospective criminal most of all.
Notes
The way the DoJ summarize the Nagin Article cited above is fascinating. Instead of saying “punishment is a deterrent,” which seems to me to be the basic fact, they skip over that and say “The certainty of being caught is a vastly more powerful deterrent than the punishment.” What an odd phrasing.
What is the point of talking first about certainty before telling the reader that punishment is effective? The DoJ writes a qualifying statement without introducing the factual assertion they intend to qualify. It would be like saying “showers are vastly more effective at getting you wet than baths” without acknowledging that baths get you wet.
DA in CA 