A Summary of General and Specific Deterrence
A Summary of General and Specific Deterrence
Introduction
Deterrence is the omission of legally proscribed acts; hence by this omission one may be abiding by the prescribed law. It is important to distinguish between deterrence and punishment avoidance. While the former has been defined, the later, punishment avoidance happens when there has been commission of a crime but the perpetrator was not punished. This paper shall discuss and give a summary of the distinction between general and specific deterrence.
General deterrence pertains to the effects of legal punishment, of criminals, to the public at large/potential criminals. On the other hand, Specific deterrence refers to the effects/results of legal punishment on the sufferers of that punishment (punished criminals). Both general and specific deterrence acknowledges certain kind of interaction with legal punishment so as to deter persons from engaging in criminal activities. In cases of members of the public, general deterrence, the experience with legal punishment is indirect i.e. observing the punishment of the others that deters the public. On the other hand, specific deterrence is directly to the punished offender, thus more of a personal experience (Ferries, T. n.d).
Pitfalls of general and specific deterrence concept
However, the conventional distinction between general and specific deterrence has shortfall that shall be discussed as follows: General deterrence in its concept fails to recognize that there are two types of persons whom have never experienced legal punishment. They are: persons who have never committed any crimes, and persons who have committed crimes but have avoided punishment. Only the first type of persons can be said to have not experienced direct legal punishment. The second person may have not experienced legal punishment, but has acquired experience by avoiding punishment. Avoiding punishment after committing a crime provides minimal information of the legal consequences of being caught. It is likely that punishment avoidance encourages crime than punishment does to discourage it. Therefore, what is taken to be general deterrence is not strictly limited to persons lacking direct experience with legal punishment (Stafford, & Warr, 1 May 1993).
Specific deterrence concept also suffers some challenge. The concept assumes that the offender’s direct experience is the only variable that determines their future behavior. While in fact, the efficacy of deterrence is usually determined by the knowledge of similar severity and certainty of punishment. Members of the public and punished offenders are likely to have a mixture of both indirect and direct experience with punishment and punishment avoidance. Moreover, offenders are mostly engaged in more than one type of criminal activity, and they may or may not suffer legal punishment for each type of crime (Stafford, & Warr, 1 May 1993).
A new concept of general and specific deterrence
The pitfalls of distinguishing between general and specific deterrence is mainly by focusing on distinct population, punished offenders and the general public. However, a proper distinction should focus strictly on contrasting kinds of experience with legal punishment. As deterrence is defined to mean the curtailment of fear of legal punishment, then general deterrence refers to the deterrent effects of indirect experience with punishment and punishment avoidance. Specific deterrent refers to the deterrent effect of direct experience with punishment and punishment avoidance (Stafford, & Warr, 1 May 1993)
References
Stafford, M. C. & Warr, M. (1 May 1993) A Reconceptualization of General and Specific Deterrence. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 30(2), 123-135. doi: 10.1177/0022427893030002001 or http://jrc.sagepub.com/content/30/2/123.full.pdf+html
Ferries, T. (n.d) .Deterrence As an Objective to Sentencing. Retrieved from http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/S/SpecificDeterrence.aspx
