Classical Deterrence Theory : An Examination Essay

It is estimated that general deterrence aims at making the offender to think twice before violating the law, because the physical and psychological pain that the offender will get through the action do not equate with the benefits of doing that action. Also, the general deterrence means that amount of penalties impose on the offender will stop others and deter them from committing crimes and prevents others form even thinking to commit the crime. That is because the human psyche is always tending to move away from the painful results.

In other words, a person may be tempted to commit a crime if there not a strong enough deterrent in place. Hence, Bentham’s solution to crime control was to address this pleasure/pain response by imposing strict penalties proportional to the seriousness of the crime committed to discourage people from offending (Von Hirsch, 1992). Although he did not support the death penalty, punishment for committing crime was considered by Bentham as the lesser of two evils, necessary for the health of society and the duty of the government to impose (Bull, 2010; Hudson, 2003). Punishment, for Bentham, was a way to ensure “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” (Rosen, 2003, p 221).

Bentham argues that humans only commit actions on the bases of utility, which is the desire to enjoy happiness and prevent pain. He is certain that utility alone governs human morality and that the principles of utilitarianism are morally correct for every situation. Bentham claims that the purpose of morality is to increase the happiness of society and every action should aim to benefit the greatest number. He argues that without attaining happiness for the greatest number, society becomes dysfunction. In Bentham’s perfect utilitarian society, individuals would put aside their personal desires which cause pain to society as a whole in order to promote universal happiness. Bentham, strongly suggests that utilitarianism has no uncertainties, period. After objective analysis under Utilitarianism, before committing any action an individual must first examine the happiness which can be extracted from the action and the potential harms that it can cause, if the action yields more pain to the greatest number it is immoral. Bentham concludes that pain can’t yield happiness and that for an action to be morally correct it must

Cesare Beccaria is the “Father of Classical Criminology” and justified punishment on the principle of utility. Beccaria focused on reforming the Criminal Justice System and believed that punishment should be for the better good for society, as well as the individual, and deter others from committing crime and prevent criminals from recommitting crime. He believes effective punishment must certain, swift, and severe to get the desired effect on society and the offender (Robert, Cullen, and Ball 2015). He is also the author of his book Of Crime and Punishment, which discussed his philosophy on the purposes

Jeremy Bentham is widely regarded as the father of utilitarianism. He was born in 1748 into a family of lawyers and was himself, training to join the profession. During this process however, he became disillusioned by the state British law was in and set out to reform the system into a perfect one based on the ‘Greatest Happiness Principle,’ ‘the idea that pleasurable consequences are what qualify an action as being morally good’. Bentham observed that we are all governed by pain and pleasure; we all

Deterrence is founded on the assumption that people make rational choices about rather or not they wish to engage in criminal behavior. Thus, it is believed that one would weigh the gain they expect to achieve from a particular crime, to the expected cost of punishment. Punishment encompasses the likelihood of being caught and punished as well as the expected severity of the punishment. Therefore, in order to effectively deter, planner and criminal justice professionals must look into three factors: the severity of the punishment, the certainty of punishment, and the celerity with which the punishment is imposed. However, the severity of the punishment must be proportional to the benefit the criminal expects to realize from the

Juveniles around the United States are committing crimes every day. When they commit these crimes, they may not know of the consequences that come with committing the crimes until they get caught. These young children or teenagers need to start learning the consequences of committing a crime before they grow older because if they do not learn, they will make their life miserable. The deterrence theory would be a perfect way to keep these young people out of trouble. Deterrence would play a huge role in to getting these young children or teenagers on the right path of their life. If you show them what the consequences would be or even give them real life experience they would be deterred from doing the things they have done in the past.

present the statistics in a manner that made them more relevant to the audience, per Sedivy and Carlson’s suggestion in Sold on Language as well as capitalizing on the novelty of seeing an important statistic put in terms of how many burritos could be bought, based on Luntz’s suggestion in Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear.

Jeremy Bentham was one of the first philosophers to present a fully developed system of utilitarianism. He thought that we, as humans, should evaluate the consequences of our actions, determine whether each action is morally right or wrong, and tally the pleasure and pain that comes as a result of our actions. Is it right for me to donate to charity? Is it right for me to cheat on my government test? These questions we ask ourselves fall under Bentham’s theory known as act-utilitarianism because it focuses on the consequences of every action we perform. Bentham argues that the “greatest happiness of the greatest number of people” (Bentham) is how we should determine right from wrong. He also believed “mankind is under the

It is better to try and prevent crimes than it is to punish them, this is achieved by good legislation which guides men to their greatest, or least unhappiness possible (Beccaria, 1767). As mentioned previously, Beccaria’s utilitarian ideology has shaped the justice system in western societies for many decades. Therefore, Beccaria can be described as a very influential thinker. Without his contribution we could still have a system of capital punishment, and that is a worrying thought. However, we now seem fixed with utilitarian justice. It may be argued that it is now time to move towards restorative justice. There are also those such as Tullock (1974), who argue for a return to harsher sentencing. Some states in the US still consider the death penalty to be a legitimate punishment. So it can be said that Beccaria is undoubtedly a key thinker in criminology, but as with all key thinkers he is not without his critics.

During the mid to late seventeenth century explanations of crime and punishment were embraced by many philosophers Thomas Hobbs (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and such theorist as Beccaria (1738), an Italian who was highly recognised by his great success through his essay ’Dei delitti e delle pene’ (On Crimes and Punishment) publicised in translations of 22 languages, effectively leaving huge impressions on the legal thoughts on members of the European and US society (Hopkins Burke 2009), developing the theory of ‘Classical

Bentham’s concern was upon utilitarianism which assumes the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers. He believes that individuals weigh the probabilities of present and future pleasures against those of present and future pain (Postema, 1998).

In the beginning of “An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation” written by Bentham himself he first starts off by saying, “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure” This is the basis of what the principle of utility is all about. Pain and pleasure are what dictate or motivate us to do everything in life. Bentham believes that a decision can be made depending on how much pain and/or pleasure it will bring to the greatest amount of people. So if a decision brings more pain than pleasure to society as a whole it is deemed as wrong and if a decision brings more pleasure than pain it is deemed as a worthy thing to do. Bentham states, “to prevent mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered: if that party be the community in general, then the happiness of the community: if a particular individual, then the happiness of that individual.” The way

According to Bentham, all human beings are governed by two sovereign aspects: Pleasure and pain while each individual accepts the fact that we desire pleasure and unwilling to encounter pain. Then, he came up with his Principle of utility where:

Overall happiness and utility is when the maximum amount of pleasure is given for the least amount of pain. However, utility is only beneficial to a majority of society and can cause several others to suffer IF it is offering the greatest pain to pleasure ratio. The utility of a community leaves a lot of room to argue that people can be put through an unreasonable amount of pain if it offers better utility for the community. Beccaria argues that punishment that is abused or unnecessary will be ineffective in a society. Therefore, he is challenging Bentham’s view on the utility of a community. Beccaria’s view on a society is that a social contract will keep the pain to pleasure ratio at a reasonable point, while also arguing that utility to individuals is just as important. Beccaria would not agree that utility is what justifies punishment. However, he would concur that by joining a society and agreeing to the social contract theory, then one is approving that punishment is justified.