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Must the American Criminal Justice System Be Impotent?
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11187 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1986 |
5,757 Words |
| Author
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Ernest van den Haag
Ernest van den Haag, recently retired as John M. Olin
Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Policy at Fordham
University, is currently a distinguished scholar at the
Heritage Foundation. This is a revised version of a paper
first read in January 1990 at a conference on "The Ambiguous
Legacy of the Enlightenment" held at the Claremont Institute
in Claremont, California, to be published in a forthcoming
book. |
Crime is morally and materially costly. It endangers the social order, affronts society, and arouses fear, which diminishes the tranquility and the freedom to which citizens are entitled. Violence, so often part of crime, is harmful morally and materially. Property crimes unjustly transfer wealth from victims to criminals. The risk of such involuntary transfers is costly and the illegal transfers themselves often are destructive as well. Not least, the cost of law enforcement and of private protection necessitated by crime must be added to the cost of crime. Although some recent practices seem to suggest otherwise, restitution to the victim cannot offset these social costs, let alone discharge the penal liabilities of criminals. Restitution at most discharges the civil debt owed by the offender to the victim.
Crime rates have long been much higher in America than in Europe. Many causes have been alleged. Perhaps heterogeneity, pluralism, federalism, liberty, or demographic factors explain part of the difference. But learning as much is not helpful since we can or will not give up any of these. Genetic, social, or psychological causes of crime, such as low intelligence, broken families, or parental mistreatment, are not likely either to be much affected by any remedies society can devise. Finally, although still favored by presidential commissions, poverty, inequality, and bad housing have been discredited as causes of crime.
Consider poverty. America is the world's wealthiest major country. It also has one of the world's highest crime rates-a crime rate higher in prosperity than in depression and which rises "with increases in median family income." There is inequality. But no correlation has ever been demonstrated
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