Criminal punishment is justified on either retributive or consequential grounds. The retributive justification is premised on a common-sense view of free will: offenders can freely choose to commit crimes and so deserve blame for their actions. The consequentialist justification, in contrast, is not necessarily premised on the free will concept, but rather justifies punishment when it is the most cost-effective way of preventing crime. Science elucidating the mechanistic causes of human behavior has thrown the notion of free will into doubt, leading some to predict a shift in public support away from retribution towards consequentialism. Past research shows that free will doubt weakens support for retribution, but less is known about its effects on support for consequentialism, or about whether these effects differ across the crime severity spectrum. In this study, we explore the effects of free will doubt on support for retribution and consequentialism in response to three different categories of crime - drug crime, property crime, and violent crime - which have been shown to evoke varying levels of emotion. We find clear inconsistencies across the crime spectrum. For high affect crime, free will doubt weakens support for retribution via blame, and increases support for consequentialism. For low affect crime, free will doubt weakens support for retribution to an even greater extent, yet also decreases support for consequentialism via blame. These findings suggest that, as science reveals the mechanistic causes of criminal behavior, support for criminal punishment will decrease, especially with respect to less serious crimes.
The Covid-19 stay-at-home restrictions put in place in New York City were followed by an abrupt shift in movement away from public spaces and into the home. This study used interrupted time series analysis to estimate the impact of these changes by crime type and location (public space vs. residential setting), while adjusting for underlying trends, seasonality, temperature, population, and possible confounding from the subsequent protests against police brutality in response to the policeinvolved the killing of George Floyd. Consistent with routine activity theory, we found that the SAH restrictions were associated with decreases in residential burglary, felony assault, grand larceny, rape, and robbery; increases in non-residential burglary and residential grand larceny motor vehicle; and no change in murder and shooting incidents. We also found that the protests were associated with increases in several crime types: felony assault, grand larceny, robbery, and shooting incidents. Future research on Covid-19's impact on crime will need to account for these potentially confounding events.
(2):157-165). For the CJ system, this presents not just a challenge but a unique opportunity to improve public health and public safety. In particular, medicationassisted treatments (MATs) have shown the potential to reduce both recidivism and relapse. Nevertheless, access to MAT in this setting remains limited; for example, although U.S. drug courts were created chiefly to expand access to drug addiction treatment services, only about one-half make MAT available (Matusow et al. 2013, "Medication Assisted Treatment in US Drug Courts: Results from a Nationwide Survey of Availability, Barriers and Attitudes." Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 44 (5):473-480). In this commentary, we explore the reasons for which access to MAT is limited in this setting, and lay out the evidence and arguments for a particular type of MAT: extended release (ER) naltrexone.
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