CRM/LAW C108 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Gary Becker, Cesare Beccaria, Scientific Method
21 Jun 2016
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Movement away from supernatural and towards scientific method. Humans are rational actors - weigh costs/benefits. Emphasizes laws and consistency - social contract. Excessive punishment pushes people to commit worse crimes. Judges and juries not as accurate as law. Determined by the sovereign (head of state) Rational calculations of pleasure (crime) and pain (punishment) - but many crimes are committed impulsively. Punishments determine crime - doesn"t consider other factors. Armchair philosophers - didn"t actually have empirical evidence. Assumptions about human nature: everyone is predisposed to commit crime. Gary becker - crimes & punishment: an economic approach. Amount of crime is balance between costs and benefits. Idea of certainty of punishment (beccaria) goes along with certainty of arrest. More police, police visibility, perceptions of enforcement. Where there is disorder, means no police enforcement. Away from classical style because of belief that more severe punishment will deter.
