ABSTRACT
Deterrence is a venerable, simple, and powerful idea. Few people knowingly touch hot stoves, play in traffic, or commit crimes while police officers stand nearby. It is also a hard idea to like. At a basic level, consequences – and, the basis of deterrence, the prospect of consequences – matter. Most everyone – the authors included – would prefer a world in which the public safety could be ensured without making threats of punishment and delivering on those threats. Even for those – the authors also included – who are resigned to living in a world less perfect than that, the excesses of especially the American criminal justice system in attempting to produce deterrence, and the mechanistic economic frameworks lately used to frame and actually execute it, can make the idea of deterrence distasteful.
