Originally Posted by contracycle

Which is irrelevant - that would be true regardless of whether the riots were a sort of "protest" or whether they were due to "instant gratification".

Indeed. I mean, technically, you can argue that almost any theft is both "protest" (I am dissatisfied with the current wealth distribution) and "instant gratification" (I am not waiting for a potential bettering of my spending power).

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May isn't arguing for long sentences to incapacitate criminals, she's arguing that punitive measures alone are sufficient, and that paying attention to social conditions is misguided.

And, as I said, if the punitive measures are drastic enough, it may become efficient. How many people would have rioted and stolen if the penalty had been being deported to a gulag near the Scottish Highlands?

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Still irrelevant to the point at hand.

Huh? It means that May, wrong as she might be, is making a somewhat coherent argument that is not particularly moral or particularly at odds with "they stole stuff coz they felt it was easier than trying to save up for them"...

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Its a shoddy view because as people are finding out during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression... theft and other crimes are.... in decline???

Its just an old, old meme about people only stealing stuff because they're poor and can't afford it because wealth is viewed as a sign of positive moral status. (he has lots of money because he's smart/hard worker etc... poor people steal stuff because they're lazy/stupid etc)

If that were true we wouldn't have celebrity shop lifters or millionaire investment guys running off with trillions.

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That's because of two things, I think. The first one is fairly well understood, it's the fact that poverty/wealth is relative. The second one, imho, is a bit of a fudge but we don't have much else - it's the 'zeitgeist'. The fact that sometimes people feels it's okay to steal and sometimes they don't.

Like drug dealing in the mid70s or early 80s. Whole communities were, like, "this is the only business open for a black American, what else are we supposed to do?"... until the tidal wave of social pressure changed and it was seen as The Evil.

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The point is though that long sentences con only prevent re-oggending by the same crims, it can't do anything about the reasons new people resort to criminality in the first place. Last I read there was no evidence that punitive sentences really made any difference, as opposed to probability of detection. This is just an argument to people who are "born to be bad", and therfore there's nothing that can be done. This is a purely moralistic and self-congratulatory view, and hence it's not about solving problems at all, just about looking down their noses at people.

Potential Criminals Can Be Deterred By Longer Sentences, Study Suggests

Using government data, the researchers looked at the recidivism rates of these former inmates for the first seven months after their release. They found that those with longer suspended sentences—and therefore longer expected sentences for new crimes—were less likely to be re-arrested than those with shorter suspended sentences.

THE GENERAL DETERRENT EFFECT OF LONGER SENTENCES

Taken as a whole the studies reviewed constitute a substantial body of evidence which is largely consistent with the existence of a deterrent effect from longer sentences.

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I am willing to concede and admit that increasing penalties is not the best way to prevent crime. But it does go to the rational incentive argument. People responds to incentives. And quite logically even if not in the homo economicus way...

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Well that is different, although I would point out that it is dealing with repeat offenses, not the initial decision. It's still the case that the our long history of increasingly severe corporal punishments never succeeded in suppressing crime. Once againm though, it;s rather beside thepoint - May isn't arguing for deterrent sentences, becuase she appears to think the people involved were inherently malicious and that;s all there is to it.