In New Zealand, Dame Sian Elias, a High Court judge, recently made a speech to the effect that prison sentences are often too harsh, as crime is the result of external factors rather than a person's own nature. This chestnut crops up every so often, generally from people who, like Dame Sian, should know better, and it disturbs me greatly that someone in such a position would say such a thing. Perhaps she has observed that poor people are more likely to end up in her court than rich ones (which would be overlooking that there are, and always have been, more poor than rich) and concluded that there is a correlation between poverty and court appearances (probably true). She has then, however, made the common but erroneous statistical
assumption that correlation is the same as causation. Often they're the same, but just as often, as here, they are two completely different things.

Her comments imply that we are stuck with what we are born with. It is true that environmental factors are important. The children of well-educated people are likely to be well-educated themselves, the children of beneficiaries are more likely to be on benefits themselves and the children of alcoholics are more likely to become alcholics. And, yes, the children of criminals are probably more likely to commit crime. But again, correlation is not causation, and to say that criminality has nothing at all to do with the children themselves is to suck hope and ambition from the children of the poor and unemployed before they even get started in life, and is utterly reprehensible.

Even assuming that the assertion were correct (which not many of us would go along with), we should compare it to the list of reasons for which we might imprison someone - retribution, punishment, rehabilitation, removal from society and deterrence. It would be cruel to punish someone for something over which he had not control. Likewise, it would be pointless to try to rehabilitate the person. Also, for similarly bad people who may commit a similar crime, somebody else going to jail will be no deterrent, because they are so bad that they cannot be deterred. That leaves two reasons that we might justify it: retribution, and removal from society. Retribution can be eliminated because it is so base, and not something that we should have as part of modern society.

But removal from society is very relevant, and as I noted before, if we are going to send people to prison at all this seems to be one of the better reasons. If a person is responsible for his actions, and he does something with a prescribed penalty, he is required to pay that. Given that the crime has occurred because of a character flaw, and given that rehabilitation is generally doesn't work, he must be removed from society.

Alternatively, if the person is out of control of his actions, this must surely be some form of mental illness. Most people who commit crimes but are found not guilty by reason of insanity must spend time in a mental health unit.

So in fact this plea for clemency for those who are from disadvantaged backgrounds does not have any logical basis. While the conclusion that Dame Sian has drawn is the intuitive one (based on her dubious assumptions, that is), the more that I have thought about it the more convinced I am that the only logical conclusion about people who are more or less pre-destined to break the law is incorrect. Such a person should be in a mental health unit for his own good, or in prison, for everyone else's.

See Also: Crime and Punishment, Part I; Crime and Punishment, Part III