這是我們在2017年為美國普渡大學的學弟學妹們寫的一篇犯罪學essay，開頭首先介紹背景，自貝卡里亞提出威懾作為刑罰的合法目的以來，首先將目的分為普遍威懾和特殊威懾。普遍威懾是為了遏制未被合法懲罰的潛在犯罪分子。與通過直接身體和情感控制犯罪人的特殊威懾相比，全面威懾只能通過法律制裁間接影響心理學理性大眾。從這個意義上說，普通大眾對法律制裁的看法和反應程度會改變他們的行為，這決定了普遍威懾的效力。為支持這一聲明，該文件同意Geerken所說的普遍威懾是一種信息傳播機制。然而，信息傳播存在障礙，因為並非所有的公眾都能夠在各方面受到約束而感知信息，除了大眾傳媒的信息僅僅有利於潛在的犯罪者改變他們的行為。因此，法律制裁有時與犯罪和累犯的頻率和比率不成正比，這已被多項研究所證實。基於這一理論，第一部分將評估2011年英格蘭騷亂與全面威懾的效果。它揭示了懲罰的確定性而非嚴厲性更多地是為了阻止潛在的罪犯。
Since Beccaria(1986) put forward deterrence as the legitimate purpose of criminal punishment, Bentham(1780)had firstly divided the purpose into general deterrence and special deterrence. General deterrence is to deter potential offenders who have not been punished in legal. Compared with special deterrence that prevents recidivism by direct physical and emotional control to offenders (Braga and Weisburd, 2012), general deterrence can only indirectly impact the rational general public in psychology by legal sanctions. In this sense, the extent to which general public perceives and reacts to the legal sanctions thus change their behavior determines the efficacy of general deterrence. In support of this statement, the paper agrees Geerken and Gove (1975) that general deterrence is a mechanism of information transmission. However, there is an obstacle in information transmission because not all the general public can perceive the information due to constrains in various aspects, in addition to the information of mass media is merely beneficial for potential offenders to change their behaviors. Therefore, legal sanction sometimes is not in positive correlation with frequency and rate of crime and recidivism, which has been evidenced by several researches. Based on this theory, the first part will assess the efficacy of general deterrence combined with 2011 England riots. It reveals that the certainty of punishment rather than severity accounts more for deterring potential offenders (Pratt et al., 2006). Therefore, several findings display that legal sanction like imprison cannot realize general deterrence. Then the second part focuses on explain the reason in the perspective of individual perception towards informative punishment. In spite of the negative efficiency of general deterrence, it argues in the last part that general deterrence can still be a legitimate purpose of punishment to certain extent.
Body部分講述內容，2011年8月6日，由於倫敦北部托特納姆大都會警察局的一名黑人馬克杜根槍殺，倫敦開始發生一系列社會動蕩。 之後，家人和社區大約200人抗議警察暴行。 2011年8月9日，騷亂蔓延到英格蘭的主要城市，包括伯明翰，利物浦，利茲和布里斯托爾。 這是自1995年布里克斯頓騷亂以來最嚴重的騷亂，也是1940年9月7日倫敦爆炸事件發生以來，納粹德國在WII期間實施的暴亂最多的騷亂。 因此，騷亂引起了包括總理在內的整個英格蘭的關注。
On August 6, 2011, a series of social unrest began in London due to a black Mark Duggan shot dead by the Metropolitan Police officer in Tottenham, north London. Afterwards, the family and community about 200 people protested against the police atrocity. On August 9, 2011, the riots spread to major cities in England, including Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds and Bristol. It was the most severe riots since Brixton riots in 1995, and also the riots involving the largest population since London bombing on September 7, 1940 implemented by Nazi Germany during WII. Therefore, the riots attracted attention of the whole England including the Prime Minister Cameron. By 20 August, BBC reported that more than 2,000 people related to the riots had been arrested[1]. Among them, offenders of violent disorder, robbery, burglary and criminal damage were imposed more than five years detention, which could be described as “greatest possible seriousness” (Colley, 2012). Moreover, the precipitate detention directly led to the prison was over-crowed. Although the court insisted the necessity and obligation to do so in order to protect and deter the general public, the legal sanctions imposed to the offenders were criticized in various aspects. On the one hand, the government represented by Prime Minister Cameron highlighted that the riots was not a social issue but a crime issue. Under the context, it seemed to be fair to impose detention to offenders who committed violent disorder, robbery, burglary and criminal damage. However, the riots was associated closely with the complex social and economic causes such as racial tensions, unemployment, juvenile violent, etc., and there were a number of juvenile offences. In that case, the indiscriminate and sever punishment violated the human rights.
最後是conclusion的部分，總結在多項研究的基礎上，重點論證了監禁和過度嚴厲懲罰對於遏制潛在罪犯的負面影響，然而，法律制裁在全面威懾中發揮了可觀的作用，儘管本文沒有涉及，但已被眾多研究證明。根據傳統的刑事理論，威懾效應的實現取決於懲罰的確定性，嚴重性和迅捷性，懲罰的確定性是主要的先決條件。因此，展示信息傳遞的障礙需要很長的時間，而知覺會阻礙威懾效果。
It focuses on demonstrate the negative effect of imprisonment and excessively severe punishment to deter potential offenders on the basis of several researches, however, legal sanction plays appreciable role in general deterrence which has been proved by numerous researches though the paper does not involve it. According to the traditional criminal theory, the realization of deterrence effect depends on the certainty, severity and swiftness of punishment, and the certainty of punishment is the main precondition. Nevertheless, the paper states in the third part that information transmission and individual perception capacity are prior to certainty of punishment as precondition to realize general deterrence. Therefore, it takes long to demonstrate the obstacle in information transmission and perception will hinder the deterrence effect. In the last part, it argues the legitimacy of general deterrence as purpose of punishment in perspective of atonement theory. Actually, deterrence effect is essentially the extension and supplement of retribution of offenders (Levanon, (2015). Finally, retribution and deterrence theory highlight the distress of criminal punishment, however, common sense of principle and rules of criminal law is the true reason why the majority people abide by the law and accept the punishment. So the tolerance of criminal law should be further studies in prevention of crimes.
[1]BBC. “London riots arrests reach 2,000, Met Police says” retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-14668770