Abstract
Trends in the history of social science dedicated to the study of crime and punishment are presented as a case study supporting F.A. Hayek's theory of social change. Designing effective social institutions and public policies first requires an accurate vision of how society operates. An accurate model of society further requires scientific methods uniquely suited for the study of human beings as purposeful agents and the study of human institutions as complex social phenomena. If guided by faulty methods, theories are inaccurate and policy outcomes veer from their intentions. Hayek termed such outcomes "abuses of reason". Aiming to replicate the objectivity of physical sciences via formal modeling and statistical measurement, economists throughout the 20th century imposed an excessively technical vision of human decision-making. Policy failures and social problems resulted. This paper argues that the historical trends of applied social science dedicated to crime and punishment can be understood similarly. Formal modeling and statistical measurement continuously displaced methods more attuned to human intentionality and social complexity. In result, amidst a long-run history of intellectual and political change, US law enforcement and criminal punishment policies became technocratic, and outcomes became disjointed from their stated intentions to promote social order and welfare.
Highlights
In recent years, US criminal justice policies and outcomes have arisen deep concern
While it is well understood that these contemporary trends have deep seated political, cultural, economic and historical roots, such trends cannot be fully explained with references to real crime rates or other features of US exceptionalism
While execution offers obvious financial savings over incarceration (Friedman 1999), Ehrlich's research does not inherently imply policy support for more executions. It does not follow from Ehrlich's approach that capital punishment is universally efficient or socially optimal
Summary
US criminal justice policies and outcomes have arisen deep concern. Extreme growth, fiscal unsustainability, and racial disparity are widely recognized features of the US prison industrial complex. Criminal justice failures persist, and reform efforts continually fall short, because the conceptual frameworks that are used to understand crime, punishment, and their surrounding public policies and social outcomes are not fully attuned to the factors that shape such problems. Nor are they well geared to recognize the potentials of certain social processes that may be needed for the discovery and implementation of effective reforms.
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