I would imagine that many people who commit criminal acts are victims of abusive caregiving, awful environments, or at least genetically-influenced traits that facilitate criminal behavior (e.g., impulsiveness, mental illness, substance abuse, cognitive impairments). As victims, should these offenders get special treatment in the criminal justice system? Specifically, should they be able to avoid incarceration, or at the very least receive much reduced sentences? The answer depends on what we’re trying to achieve through incarceration. Glad you asked:
- Deter criminal behavior
- Protect society through temporary incapacitation of criminal offenders
- Discourage recidivism
It’s well established that the certainty of being caught is a much bigger crime deterrent than the severity of punishment. Crime rates do go down when incarceration rates go up, but that’s because fewer criminals are on the street, not because would-be criminals are afraid of lengthy sentences. Across numerous studies, there has been no correlation found between crime rates and median time served.
This isn’t to say that incarceration has no value as deterrence –being caught would lose its sting if it weren’t accompanied by some sort of punishment. While the stigma of imprisonment varies across groups and individuals, and some criminals are just “incorrigible” (repeat offenders inattentive to legal threats), removal from society for a while may persuade others to reconsider a life of crime. And since most criminals do not reoffend after release from prison (at least within 3 years), it does appear that incarceration discourages recidivism to some extent.
Whether some groups of offenders should be treated leniently depends on how this special treatment would influence crime and recidivism rates in general and how it would affect the behavior of the individuals in question. If leniency for “criminal victims” encourages more crime, then no.
Of course, there will be cases where leniency is called for – but that would mainly be for individuals who are at low-risk for reoffending anyway and whose extenuating circumstances are sufficiently extreme or unusual that others are unlikely to consider them relevant to their own decisions whether or not to break the law.
References
Daniel Nagin, “Deterrence in the 21st Century,” in Crime and Justice in America: 1975-2025 (ed. Michael Tonry, University of Chicago Press, 2013).
Impact of Prison Experience on Recidivism http://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/pages/prison-experience.aspx Accessed 9/10/2016
National Institute of Justice: Five Things about Deterrence; July 2014.