Treat Criminals Like Human Beings

Norway seems to be doing it right, and apparently, even though costly, it saves them money.

I remember reading in Freakonomics about the broken window theory in NY some years ago, however I was unaware that it had been debunked and lacked evidence that harsher punishment for petty crimes led to reduced crime.

Especially that the whole theory was based on one experiment done by Philip Zimbardo (Stanford Prison Experiment) and was never published in any scientific journal.

For those who want, enjoy the article.

A passage:

What had sounded so good in theory boiled down to more and more frivolous arrests. Commissioner Bratton became obsessed with statistics, and so did his officers. Those who could present the best figures were promoted, while those who lagged behind were called to task. The result was a quota system in which officers felt pressured to issue as many fines and rack up as many citations as possible. They even began fabricating violations. People talking in the street? Arrest ’em for blocking a public road. Kids dancing in the subway? Book ’em for disturbing the peace.

Serious crimes were an entirely different story, investigative journalists later discovered. Officers were pressured to tone down their reports or skip them altogether, to avoid making departmental figures look bad. There are even cases of rape victims who were subjected to endless questioning in an attempt to trip them up on tiny inconsistencies. Then the incident wouldn’t be included in the data.

On paper, it all looked fantastic. Crime had taken a nosedive, the number of arrests were sky high and Commissioner Bratton was the hero of New York. In reality, criminals walked free while thousands of innocent people became suspects. To this day, police departments across the country still swear by Bratton’s philosophy – which is why scientists continue to consider US police statistics unreliable.

— Here’s a radical idea that will change policing, transform prisons and reduce crime: treat criminals like human beings, The Correspondent