According to that crime paper, crime happens because the benefits of crime outweigh the costs. It then proceeds to discuss why the benefits are so high and cannot be changed, so the costs should be addressed in the most efficient way - higher chance of getting caught, rather than punitive measures which are already highly discounted and do not make a linear impact:

If potential offenders value their future significantly less than their present welfare, then the same increase in sentence lengths from 3 to 6 years will have a much more modest impact than it would if they were patient.

But the same data also shows that the reason crime benefits outweigh the costs (regardless of what they are) is because of the discounting of future welfare. The State can totally affect how much people value their future, it just chooses not to.

Which is a very inconsistent thing to leave off-limits, given the constant intervention of the State in failing businesses (e.g. mortgage crisis). A failing business is a "grave" economic risk and can't be allowed because of the impact it would have on the health of the system. But "failing" people who are discounting their future welfare, when taken in aggregate, are more crucial and more directly linked to the State's raison d'être. Just because private organizations are easier to identify and easier to measure the 'impact' of, does not mean that the impact of individual citizens is of no consequence or cannot affect the social order. Nor is the are any reason to believe organizations of being more responsible than citizens. However, since we have always been biased in the favor of those with property (and more of it), laws and norms see helping people as fool-hardy and socialist. But people (at least in currently-existing society) are for-profit too, like the paper says. And in aggregate, both idealogically and economically speaking, make more sense for the State to care about.

[…] a professional layabout. Which I aspire to be, but am not yet. — CheeseburgerBrown

start using lazy Britishisms like "Nafta"?

Going down the sewer.

There was someone on the Today Programme last week talking about the penalties for knife carrying. Her point was that 99% of those carrying knives were doing so entirely for self defences, only 1% of the carriers intended to use them. Ignoring the shortage of data to back this up, it doesn't sound totally implausible. This implies that most of the people who the police catch carrying knives are "innocent" - or at least not looking actively to cause harm. It also leaves these people with a choice: are you more afraid of being stabbed because you can't defend yourself or of being arrested for carrying a knife?

All the stats may indicate that those carrying a weapon are more likely to be victims, but people are notoriously bad at risk. If people think that carrying a knife will make them safer, then they will. And taking them to see knife crime vicitims in hospital (another fuckwitted goverment idea) might not have the intended effect.

So, anyway, I suspect that whatever you do with the penalties for knife carrying, the fear of dying is probably stronger.

You can't inspire people with facts
- Small Gods

I'd recommend "The Black Swan" by Nicholas Taleb.  It has a really good chapter on why people are generally rubbish at risk management.

it was one week for every month.
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if de-virgination results in me being able to birth hammerhead sharks, SIGN ME UP!!! --misslake

Go back to January/February of this year to find it. Maybe March.

"To this day that was the most bullshit caesar salad I have every experienced..." - triggerfinger