ABSTRACT
The incarceration system in the United States is broken. It does not effectively—much less efficiently—serve the forward-looking goals of punishment, which rely heavily on fear of incarceration. It neither rehabilitates criminals nor prevents recidivism effectively. Evidence suggests the current system fails to deter any more than shorter sentences or better conditions would (e.g., Cullen, Jonson, and Nagin 2011). And the incarceration system does not serve the backwards-looking retributive goals of punishment effectively either, in part because, as we discuss below, most people are not satisfied with punishment involving merely impersonal incarceration or the attendant suffering of wrongdoers, except in response to the worst crimes. Rather, we want punishment not only to send a message to wrongdoers but also for the message to be received, internalized, and acted upon. The US penal system is not effective at leading wrongdoers to recognize the harm they have done, to want to repair the harm, and to change so that they will not repeat such harms. Criminal behavior may indicate that the offender does not sufficiently value the community’s norms. Punishment might be most effective in achieving multiple aims if it expresses both this (backward-looking) message about the offender’s undervaluation of the community’s norms and the (forward-looking) message that the offender must increase his valuation of those norms.
