Deterrents do work. They just tend to work in the cases people don't want. For example, they don't work in the 'tough on crime' way. A person who feels they have nothing to lose or is irrational/mental is not going to be deterred by punishment. So for crimes like murder, street theft... I don't think deterrence works.
Yet, there are whole areas of life against people who have a lot to lose... to deter them against doing stupid things.
Things like drinking and driving, driving dangerously/speeding, white collar crimes... and I would put adultery in there as well.
You want proof? Do you think people speed as much when there is photo-radar? If you must have proof.
http://ict.illinois.edu/Publications/report%20files/FHWA-ICT-10-064.pdfThat's a lot of reading. Quote the relevant part please.
Yes, people with something to lose do double check their behavior if there are penalties involved.
All criminals have something to lose. If you want to insist that prison is a deterrent, you also must concede that, at the very least, loss of freedom and privilege is something to lose. And yet, most people in prisons are repeat offenders. So clearly, the criminals who are caught and imprisoned don't seem to see prison as much of a deterrent.
I don't see how you could argue otherwise.
Because a criminologist or psychologist would reject the idea that such a thing is purely rational, well aware that there are many other determining factors in play in the headspace of one who commits or will commit a crime. Mental illness, social and environmental factors, level of education, self-value, all manner of complex nuance. And rationality can just as easy go the other way, to reason someone into committing a crime or rationalise the consequences.
I'd say the informed opinions of experts trump the intuition of a layperson.
Imagine you're married but someone at work starts flirting with you. You would think more than twice if you could be sent to jail for pursuing it.
Adultery is a clandestine game. Adulterers are capable of keeping an affair secret from their own partner. Someone they live with, eat with, sleep next to. It's possible to lie and cheat to their face indefinitely. And keep it from friends, family, co-workers too. If they have the capacity to do that, why are they going to be overly concerned about some distant, abstract body of law enforcement? And that 'threat' of punishment becomes almost laughably insignificant in cases of one-night-stands. Who is ever gonna find out about that?
All prison will do is reduce the number of adulterers who come clean to their partners of their own accord. Oh, and also fill up more prison cells unnecessarily.
Topic: Adultery : is it harmless act ?