HARPER'S LAWS WON'T DETER CRIME

Old Economic Theory. Conservative Harsh-Sentences Plan Fails To
Consider Human Nature

Everyone from Paul Martin to Jack Layton agrees that tough sentences
are part of the solution to gun crime. They're all wrong. But no one
is more wrong than Stephen Harper, whose long list of bare-knuckle
justice policies would completely transform the criminal justice system.

For Harper, punishment is the solution to gangs. And drugs. And child
abuse. And pretty much every other form of undesirable behaviour. Far
more than any other politician - even other conservative politicians
- - he will use punishment as a social policy tool.

I think there's a very specific reason for this. It's not that Harper
has a fetish for uniforms and prisons. It's that he has a master's
degree in economics.

In classical economic theory, human beings are rational. We take in
information and make calculations based on it. And our calculations
are always based on the simple principle that we "maximize utility" -
meaning we avoid the bad stuff whenever possible while piling up as
much of the good stuff as we can get our hands on. Our species is
"homo economicus" - economic man.

It's a neat, clean, simple theory. And it leads to neat, clean,
simple conclusions about all sorts of human behaviour, including crime.

Say you're a criminal and you're thinking about robbing a corner
store. If you do it, you'll get a bunch of money. But there's also a
chance you will be caught and punished. Should you do it?

For the classical economist, your decision will depend on a simple
calculation. If the money outweighs the risk of getting caught and
punished, you will commit the robbery. If it doesn't, you won't.

That leads to an obvious conclusion about how to fight crime:
Increase the risk. That will tilt the calculation against committing
the crime. You will be deterred.

So how do we increase the risk to would-be criminals? There are two
ways. First, we can boost the chance of getting caught.
Unfortunately, that's difficult. The other way to increase risk is to
boost the punishment. That's very easy to do. We only have to pass a law.

This is why Harper wants to pass a long list of laws that would
drastically increase sentences. In the leaders' debate, he said his
crime policies would produce "deterrent effects." That's an economist talking.

Or, to be more precise, that's an old-fashioned economist talking -
because only old-fashioned economists still believe in the myth of
homo economicus.

For many decades, psychologists and other researchers have been
exploring how human brains really work. What they discovered is that
human beings - big surprise - are not walking calculators.

There are two basic systems of human thought. One is reasoning. It
involves slow, conscious, careful thought. This sort of thinking fits
with the old economic theory.

The second system is very different. It is intuition - instinct,
emotion, gut feeling, reaction and snap judgments. It is filled with
quirks and flaws. Sometimes the thoughts it produces are downright nutty.

The problem for the old economic theory is that a whole lot of
people's thinking is done with the intuitive system. Researchers have
found that even in the sober environment of university laboratories,
people lean heavily toward intuition. "People are not accustomed to
thinking hard," said Daniel Kahneman, the leading scientist in the
field, "and are often content to trust a plausible judgment that
comes quickly to mind."

That quotation comes from a speech Kahneman gave accepting the 2002
Nobel memorial prize in economics. It was the second Nobel awarded to
researchers whose work undermined the old economic theory. The first
was to Herbert Simon in 1978.

In fact, Kahneman's Nobel was proof that the long debate is coming to
a close: Like Santa Claus, homo economicus does not exist. Most
economists now accept this.

But still there are holdouts, economists who love the old, simple
theory and refuse to give it up. They can be found in the dustier
economics faculties. Others are policy wonks in neo-conservative
think tanks. Some are politicians.

I admit all this might sound obscure. It's not. It bears directly on
the question of how we should fight crime.

Criminologists have examined deterrence in countless studies and they
have reached a rough consensus. It turns out that criminals can be
deterred by increasing the risk of getting caught. But they cannot be
deterred by making punishments tougher.

For psychologists, this conclusion doesn't present any difficulties.
It's just another example of human irrationality, another quirk of
the human brain.

But for economists clinging to the idea of homo economicus, what the
criminologists have found is impossible. It doesn't fit the theory.

So how do old-fashioned economists deal with what the criminologists'
research? They pretty much ignore it.

And that is how we got to Stephen Harper's get-tough justice
policies. They will cost billions of dollars. And criminologists
agree they won't deter crime. But still Harper is pressing ahead with
them, confident that tougher sentences will make our communities safer.

Because that is what an old, discredited theory says.