The disheartening function of punishment: Revisiting the theories of punishment in the light of experimental psychology

Abstract

The argument that prison sentences do not work has been repeated many times in the criminological literature. However, the opposite view seems resilient and ever-stronger in the public sphere, being routinely invoked in legislative debates and judicial practice. To understand the persistence of this discourse, we examine the recent literature in Experimental Psychology and discuss what empirical studies have to say about both psychological processes related to punishment decisions, and transgressor’s decisions to take risks and violate rules. Our aim was to find an evidence-based answer to the following question: is legal punishment an effective prevention strategy? The reviewed tradition of research shows that, while people use preventive arguments to justify punishments, it is retributive intuitions that guide their decisions. On the other hand, from the point of view of the minds of those who are punished, studies show that various assumptions of the preventive argument – that the recipients of criminal law are able to calculate the ‘costs’ associated with the severity of punishment, for example – lack consistent empirical basis. As a conclusion from this review, we suggest that traditional punishment theories should be reformulated, including a broader view of possible responses to the criminal phenomenon, less focused on the centrality of prison sentences.