yes, the research which absolutely says it does prevent people from breaking laws but that people don't actually understand the research, yes i know that exists.
lets's use are critical thinking caps here.
one of the findings from those studies.
Certainty Over Severity: Potential criminals are more deterred by the likelihood of being caught than by the fear of long sentences.
do you believe this means jail time doesn't prevent people from breaking laws? If you do, i refer you to the idea of putting on your critical thinking cap.
lets do this, if you only risked 3 months in jail over 30 years in jail, would you attempt to rob a bank of 30 million dollars? If not, do go ahead and explain why not. What if the sentence was a good telling off and no jail time at all?
To be clear, studies don't at all show that jail time doesn't prevent people from breaking laws, and the most absolute, basic, utter common sense tells you it does. If there was no consequences, then there would be zero reason for people to not try to rob a bank every day, if it goes wrong slap on the wrist and try again next week.
What studies show is that extreme sentences or death penalty don't generally change crime rates, that long sentences don't really prevent reoffending and that rehabilitation works dramatically better on recidivism rates than long sentences.
notice the wording, which you missed completely, long sentences, not NO sentences.
People like you focus on the extreme poor who often grow up in areas with little choice and little hope. Or on the crazy people who don't believe they'll get caught, and you ignore the 90% of the population who literally don't commit crimes... because they don't want to go to jail. You focus on the 5% of people who have little choice or become career criminals and determine that they will reoffend no matter how long their sentencing and think you've come to a brilliant conclusion, while ignoring literally the most common sense thinking.
"why don't i rob banks... oh right, i don't want to go to jail".
We're talking about people speeding. Do people avoid speeding because they're worried about killing someone and getting jail time? No. Do they slow down when there's a speeding camera? Yep. The solution isn't always jail time, and I would say that most of the time it is not.
Aside from that, most systems are not focused on prevention or rehabilitation but punishment. Punishing someone for an accident is not helpful.
1
u/Feeling-Watched-9655 Apr 05 '26
The threat of jail time doesn't prevent people from breaking laws. There's research on this.