Deviance Theory

In the late 1700’s and early 1800’s Classical Theory was the main focus of crime theory. Cesare Beccaria was the most important theorist for the Classical Theory idea. He believed that people want to achieve pleasure and avoid pain while committing a crime, and in order to stop people from committing crimes the system must administer some pain/punishment to stop people from committing a criminal act.  He said that people act on their free will, which states that, “humans are rational, and have the ability to make decisions according to each individual's own will and purposes.” Under this perspective, people can understand the difference between right and wrong, and can choose to commit criminal acts or to follow the law. This belief leads us to the Deterrence Theory. This theory states, “Crime can be controlled through the use of punishments that combine the proper degrees of certainty, severity, and celerity.” Certainty is the most important of the three elements of this theory and refers to the likelihood of the individual getting not only caught but also punished for the crime they have committed. If someone knows that they will be caught and punished for committing a crime, it will help reduce crime rates. Severity refers to how harsh a punishment will be for certain crimes. The punishment must fit the crime. If the punishment is not harsh enough, it will not deter crime, but if the punishment is too harsh or unjust, this can lead to more crime. An example of this would be if rape and murder were both punishable by death, a rapist would then not refrain from killing the victim. Thus not deterring crime. The last of the three elements is celerity, which refers to how “swift” or quickly the suspect will be punished after committing a crime. Deterrence can be broken up into two different categories, general and specific. General deterrence is the belief that a whole community of people can be deterred from committing a crime after witnessing/hearing the punishment of an individual for committing a crime. An example of this would be drunk drivers getting their license revoked and receiving prison time after a repeat offense. A judge has no discretion and must revoke someone’s license after committing the crime multiple times. The purpose of that is to deter the public from engaging in drunk driving. Specific deterrence is the idea that if a person is punished for committing a crime, that individual will be less likely to break the law again. For example, say someone gets pulled over for drunk driving and it’s their first offense of this, the judge has some options for what the punishment could be. An individual could receive an expensive fine; get their license taken for a period of time, or days in jail or prison. Say someone is very wealthy; a fine wouldn’t deter him or her from committing this crime again because money is not an issue. In this case revoking his or her license may deter them from committing this offense again, but say the judge decides to give them time in jail or prison; this would work not only as specific deterrence but also general deterrence. After researching deterrence theory and learning more about it, I have found that focusing on making punishments for crime more severe does not deter crime. The death penalty, longer imprisonments, mandatory sentences, and the three strikes your out laws have not deterred crime, and have in fact made crime rates go up. The criminal justice system instead needs to focus their attention on the element of certainty rather than the severity. The certainty that a suspect is going to be apprehended and receive a punishment that is just has been found to reduce crime rates. Crime is always going to occur, but I believe the only way we can keep people from committing a crime is to look at the research and realize that the focus should be on making sure a suspect is caught and receives a punishment for his or her crime, rather than focusing on what that punishment is going to be.