When punishment isn’t enough
In the latest episode of the War on Drugs, about 10% of the Mexican federal police have been fired for corruption or failure to perform their duties. Many face additional criminal charges. Perhaps some federales will now think harder before dealing with the cartels.
As Jake has described, punishment serves four purposes: retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, and incapacitation. In the case of the federales, deterrence was probably the prime motivator.
But how effective is deterrence? For a criminal, the severity of punishment is one of three things to consider. The other two are the likelihood of being caught and the reward for carrying out the crime.
In the course of policing, a government can affect two of these factors: likelihood and severity of punishment. But affecting only these two factors may not be enough. Until recently, the Chinese government was routinely executing officials found guilty of malfeasance, yet corruption remains stubbornly entrenched.
This is because the potential rewards for abusing power might be so great as to trump dangers to life and limb. A simple cost-benefit analysis tells us that if the potential reward for a crime is great enough, then many risks may be justified.
In Mexico, the continued existence of a lucrative underground market provides irresistible opportunities to some people; in China, a lack of transparency in the political system does the same thing.
Punishment surely has its place among the means a society uses to control miscreants. But lasting solutions to corruption might require that we think more about eliminating the rewards that make corruption attractive.
-Charles
Image by Flickr user Foto Martien used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Related posts:
- Coates on capital punishment
- A Prisoner Dilemma
- Releasing the terminally ill from prison
- The blame game
- The unintended consequences of prohibition
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