From Hammurabi, deterrence is the next major punishment ideology. Rooted in the concepts of classical criminology referenced in Chapter 5, deterrence is designed to punish current behaviors and change future behaviors through sanctions or threats of sanctions. Deterrence can be focused on a group or on one individual. The basic concept of deterrence is to discourage individuals from offending by imposing punishment sanctions or threatening such sanctions.

Deterrence can be split into two distinct categories: general and specific. General deterrence is the idea that when someone commits an offense, they will be punished. It aims to deter a population from committing crimes.

In this way, the group imposing the punishment determines the ideals of the community and says that future criminal acts will be punished. Specific deterrence aims at ensuring the punishment is severe enough to prevent the individual from committing the crime again. By punishing or threatening to punish the individual, it is assumed they will not commit a crime again. This is what makes deterrence a forward-looking theory of punishment.

Let’s use the example of a college student, Heather, who gets caught cheating on an exam.

General Deterrence

General deterrence focuses on deterring others from committing similar offenses. If the college implements strict anti-cheating measures and publicizes the consequences of academic dishonesty, it sends a message to all students that cheating will not be tolerated. The fear of facing the same consequences as Heather, such as academic probation or expulsion, may deter other students from cheating.

Specific Deterrence

Specific deterrence aims to deter the individual offender from committing the same crime again. If Heather faces consequences such as failing the course, receiving academic probation, and being required to attend an ethics seminar, she may be deterred from cheating again. The hope is that the negative consequences will discourage her from engaging in academic dishonesty in the future. In summary, general deterrence sends a message to others, while specific deterrence targets the individual’s behavior.

Some other principles of deterrence to discuss in brief are marginal, absolute, and displacement.

Marginal deterrence works on the principle that the action itself is only reduced in amount by the individual committing the offense, not removed completely. For example, if a person sees a police car sitting on the side of the freeway and they are driving 70 mph, they might slow to 58 mph. Technically, they may still be breaking the law, yet their level of criminal behavior has been reduced.

Absolute deterrence believes that by creating a police force, all crime will be removed. Today, we know this is false. There is little to no evidence to support that all crime can be deterred within a specific area or even in general.

Displacement deterrence argues that crime is not deterred but is shifted by time, location, or the type of crime committed. For example, instead of someone stealing cars on the weekend, they may sell drugs during the day. Although the weekend crime carjacking rate would decrease in this scenario, the daily drug trade would increase.

In order for all of these principles of deterrence to work, society must have an idea of the level of punishment they will receive. For this theory to be effective, individuals must have three key elements: free will, rationality, and felicity. Free will means that everyone has the ability to make choices about their future actions, like choosing when to offend and not to offend. They must also have some ability to think rationally and to see what the outcomes of their choices will be. Felicity is the idea that they must desire more pleasurable things than harmful ones. Thus, it is more probable that crime will be deterred if all three of these elements are in place within a society. This is both a strength and weakness of the deterrence theory.

These concepts, along with the classical criminology concepts discussed in Chapter 5, were cornerstones of Beccaria’s works. Many of his concepts shaped the U.S. Bill of Rights. If deterrence is to work, the ideology of punishment should drive this goal of corrections.

Today, we have a better understanding of the effectiveness of deterrence. It does appear to work for low-level offenses and for individuals who are generally rational. However, the overall effect of deterrence is limited.

For more details on deterrence, see the National Institute of Corrections’ Five Things About Deterrence [PDF].

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“Philosophies of Punishment” is adapted from “8.1. A Brief History of the Philosophies of Punishment”, “8.2. Retribution”, “8.3. Deterrence”, “8.4. Incapacitation”, and “8.5. Rehabilitation” by David Carter in SOU-CCJ230 Introduction to the American Criminal Justice System by Alison S. Burke, David Carter, Brian Fedorek, Tiffany Morey, Lore Rutz-Burri, and Shanell Sanchez, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Modifications by Megan Gonzalez, revisions by Roxie Supplee, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 include editing for clarity.