Differential Punishment Research Articles

Sentencing ‘Crimmigrants’: How Migration Law Creates a Different Criminal Law for Non-citizens

It was once a criminal offence for a ‘prohibited immigrant’ to be found within Australia. Today, the mandatory detention regime sees the issue of whether a non-citizen may enter or remain in Australia as one solely within the ambit of administrative law. Yet non-citizen status continues to have consequences in criminal courts. This article examines the question of ‘what does criminal justice look like for non-citizens’ from two angles: the effect of character-based deportation upon the criminal sentencing process; and the differential punishment of non-citizens. It is argued that the sentencing of non-citizens in Australia is produced across an unstable boundary between immigration law and crime, creating a different, and diminished, criminal law for non-citizens.

Criminal Attempts and the Penal Lottery

ABSTRACTIn most penal systems, success is punished more than failure. For example, murder is punished more severely than attempted murder. But success or failure is often determined by luck. It thus appears that punishment is allotted on the basis of arbitrary factors. The problem of criminal attempts is the question of how to best resolve this apparent tension. One particularly sophisticated attempt at resolution, first developed by David Lewis, holds that such differential punishment is not unjust when understood as a natural penal lottery. What is most interesting about this view is that it does not appear to involve a commitment to resultant moral luck. I argue that the natural penal lottery fails to deliver justice. Upon analysis, it carries the same implication that it sought to avoid—namely, a commitment to resultant moral luck. I then argue that there can be, in principle, no penal lottery that delivers justice, natural or otherwise.

Treatment of self‐injurious behavior using differential punishment of high rates of behavior (DPH)

The purpose of the current investigation was to explore the effectiveness of differential punishment of high rates of behavior (DPH) to treat the severe self‐injury of a 28‐year‐old man with autism in an adult day program setting. DPH procedures involve the use of an established criterion related to a rate of responding within some time interval at which a punisher is delivered. The implementation of DPH in this study resulted in a substantial long‐term reduction of severe self‐injurious behavior. These findings are significant in that they provide a model for the design and implementation of punishment procedures that can be adopted in applied settings where staff resources are limited. The results of this study have implications for the treatment of severe problem behavior among individuals with autism across settings and age groups.

A Theory of Differential Punishment

A puzzle pervades the criminal law: Why is it that two offenders who behave identically are sentenced differently when one of them, due to circumstances beyond her control, causes a harmful result? Through first proposing a novel deconstruction of this question by separating theories of punishment into two broad categories (namely, offender-facing and victim-facing justifications for punishment), the Article demonstrates that results-based “differential punishment” in the criminal law can only be justified, if at all, by victim-facing theories. The Article then makes its central claim: while victim-facing theories may be capable of justifying results-based punishment in respect to many types of offenses, there are three distinct classes of offenses for which everyone should agree that differential punishment is unjustified. We conclude by showing how applying our framework would reduce the unnecessary incarceration of a significant class of criminal offenders, without sacrificing any legitimate goals of the criminal justice system.

What's Wrong with Differential Punishment?

Half of the drug offenders incarcerated in the United States are black, even though whites and blacks use and sell drugs at the same rate, and blacks make up only 13 per cent of the population. Non-comparativists about retributive justice see nothing wrong with this picture; for them, an offender's desert is insensitive to facts about other offenders. By contrast, comparativists about retributive justice assert that facts about others can partially determine an offender's desert. Not surprisingly, comparativists, especially comparative egalitarians, contend that differential punishment is retributively unjust. I agree with this assessment, but take issue with the reasons egalitarians cite in its favour. In this article, I argue that differential punishment violates retributive justice because it contributes to structural racial oppression. Over the course of developing and defending this claim, I identify the shortcomings of both comparative egalitarianism and respectarianism, which is the most popular and plausible brand of non-comparativism.

The role of juvenile adjudications in the disproportional incarceration of African-American and Hispanic defendants

Prior research has demonstrated the mediating role of criminal history in incarceration decisions involving black and Hispanic men. Juvenility also plays a role in differential punishment. Our study examines juvenile adjudications as a component of criminal history, and the extent to which such adjudications are a potential source of disproportional incarceration of black and Hispanic men. Drawing from the focal concerns model of punishment decisions, we investigate juvenile adjudications in criminal history as they might mediate racial and ethnic differences in incarceration. We also examine whether judges give different weight to adjudications depending on how long ago they occurred, and whether juvenile adjudications heighten the incarceration chances of minority men more than others. We analyze Pennsylvania sentencing data from 2006 to 2010 that allow for the decomposition of criminal history into juvenile adjudications and adult convictions, and examine incarceration and guideline departure decisions.

Differential Punishment of Similar Behaviour: Sentencing Assault Cases in a Specialized Family Violence Court and ‘Regular Sentencing’ Courts

Differential Punishment of Similar Behaviour: Sentencing Assault Cases in a Specialized Family Violence Court and ‘Regular Sentencing’ Courts

On understanding inconsistent disciplinary behaviour in schools

Inconsistent disciplinary administration across schools can inequitably impact students’ education access opportunities by separating certain students from familiar learning environments, especially in misconduct cases that result in longer-term removal. We empirically estimate whether such inconsistencies are attributable to heterogeneity in student body demographic characteristics. The results indicate that a greater number of disciplines that remove students from school for an extended period of time are observed in schools with a higher proportion of black students, but no significant differential punishment effects are observed in schools with a higher Hispanic student population. Furthermore, results of decomposing the marginal effects into conditional and unconditional elasticities indicate that it is not the case that schools with predominantly white student bodies have the least severe punishments and schools with more minority students have the most severe punishments. Rather, schools with inconsistent disciplinary behaviour have a proportion of the inconsistency attributable to the race of the student body.

Retroactivity and Crack Sentencing Reform

This article argues that the strong presumption against retroactive application of reduced punishments articulated in the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dorsey v. United States is neither historically grounded nor constitutionally compelled. Although not dispositive in Dorsey, the presumption may prove pernicious in future cases, whether in dealing with marijuana decriminalization or lessened punishment for file sharing, and in no way should signal to Congress that future changes should apply prospectively only.Although the Court reached the right result in applying the reduction in punishment for crack offenses to offenders whose sentences had not been finalized, the Court inordinately relied on the general savings statute enacted in 1871. Congress enacted that statute not to prevent retroactive decriminalization or diminution in punishment, but to avoid the consequence of abatement of pending prosecutions and penalties that, at common law, followed from alteration of a criminal statute. Congress wished to avoid the bizarre consequence of offenders walking free merely because Congress recodified a law or even increased the punishment for an offense without specifying that prosecutions could continue under the former enactment. In today’s world, the savings statute should be understood more as a default in the face of congressional silence – once it is clear that Congress considered the temporal scope of its action, the presumption disappears.I next consider whether alternative justifications support a strong presumption for prospective application of any legislative change. I initially turn to the well entrenched norm against retroactive lawmaking. I reject the premise that the conventional reasons against retroactive measures have salience in the context of legislative amelioration of punishment. I then assess two separation of powers concerns that might justify a clear statement rule against retroactive application of congressional leniency. First, I ask whether Congress’s reduction of sentences would interfere with the President’s pardon authority under Article II, and second, whether Congress lacks the power to undo a final decision of the judiciary. The constitutional arguments raise no serious barrier to retroactive application of congressional leniency.On the other hand, I reject the notion that Congress, in light of equal protection principles, must benefit those who previously committed the offense. To be sure, ignoring the plight of prior offenders at times seems grossly unfair, and Congress from a deterrence perspective lacks any justifiable reason to treat similarly situated offenders so disparately. Nonetheless, I argue that Congress under a retribution rationale can justify the differential punishment scheme and survive equal protection scrutiny.In short, because there are no compelling policy or constitutional grounds to presume that congressional leniency should apply prospectively only, Congress should be accorded the discretion to determine where to draw the line in determining the proper amount of retribution for those who committed offenses prior to the decriminalization or diminution in punishment. The Court’s decision in Dorsey should have been straightforward – given the directive in the sentencing act to rectify the disparity in sentencing between crack and powdered cocaine offenses as quickly as possible, Congress intended the shortened sentences to apply to all pending cases.

Retroactivity and Crack Sentencing Reform

This Article argues that the strong presumption against retroactive application of reduced punishments articulated in the Supreme Court’s recent decision, Dorsey v. United States, is neither historically grounded nor constitutionally compelled. Although not dispositive in Dorsey, the presumption may mislead legislatures in future contexts, whether addressing marijuana decriminalization or lessened punishment for file sharing, and in no way should signal to Congress that future changes should apply prospectively only. Although the Court reached the right result in applying the reduction in punishment for crack offenses to offenders whose sentences had not been finalized, the Court relied excessively on the general Savings Statute enacted in 1871. Congress enacted that statute not to discourage retroactive decriminalization or diminution in punishment, but to avoid the consequence of abating pending prosecutions and penalties that, at common law, followed from alteration of a criminal statute. Congress wished to prevent release of offenders when it recodified a law or increased the punishment for an offense without explicitly specifying that prosecutions could continue under the former enactment. The Savings Statute currently should be understood as a default in the face of congressional silence; once it is clear that Congress considered the temporal scope of its action, the presumption should disappear. The Article next explores whether alternative justifications support a strong presumption for prospective application of any legislative change. It initially turns to the norm against retroactive lawmaking. The conventional reasons for distrusting retroactive measures have little applicability in the context of legislative amelioration of punishment. The Article then considers two separation of powers concerns that might justify a rule against retroactive application of congressional leniency: first, whether Congress’s reduction of sentences would interfere with the President’s pardon authority under Article II, and second, whether Congress lacks the power to undo a final decision of the judiciary. The constitutional arguments raise no serious barrier to retroactive application of congressional leniency. On the other hand, the Article rejects the notion that Congress, in light of equal protection principles, must benefit those who previously committed the offense. To be sure, ignoring the plight of prior offenders may seem grossly unfair, and deterrence is not a justifiable reason to treat similarly situated offenders so disparately. Nonetheless, the Article argues that retribution and institutional rationales can justify the differential punishment scheme and survive equal protection scrutiny. In short, because there are no compelling policy or constitutional grounds to presume that congressional leniency should apply prospectively only, Congress should be accorded the discretion to determine where to draw the line in determining the proper amount of retribution for those who committed offenses before the decriminalization or diminution in punishment.

EVALUATION OF STIMULUS CONTROL OVER A COMMUNICATION RESPONSE AS AN INTERVENTION FOR STEREOTYPICAL RESPONDING

Stereotypical behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement often does not result in harm but may be undesirable in some situations. In the current investigation, participants were 2 individuals who engaged in nonharmful stereotypical responses shown in an analogue functional analysis to be insensitive to social contingencies. After bringing these responses under stimulus control using differential punishment, both participants learned a mand to terminate punishment for stereotypy. We also assessed whether the mand could be brought under stimulus control.

Moral Luck, Role-Based Ethics and the Punishment of Attempts

In most countries, failed criminal attempts are punished less severely than those that succeed. Many philosophers, including myself, have argued that differential punishment can be justified. However, in a recent paper, Hanna raises objections to defenses of differential punishment, claiming that such policy goes against our desert intuitions and also cannot be justified on utilitarian grounds. I argue in this paper that Hanna's desert-based and utilitarian objections can be undermined. Further, they are valid only within moral theories that take the agent to be an independent self, whose responsibility rests on his or her intentions and deliberations alone. However, differential punishment can be justified in a different kind of moral theory, in which there are good reasons to give luck a role to play.

DISCRIMINATIVE CONTROL OF PUNISHED STEREOTYPED BEHAVIOR IN HUMANS

The purpose of this experiment was to establish discriminative control of responding by an antecedent stimulus using differential punishment because the results of past studies on this topic have been mixed. Three adults with mental retardation who exhibited stereotypy not maintained by social consequences (i.e., automatic reinforcement) participated. For each subject, stereotypy occurred frequently in the presence of a stimulus correlated with nonpunishment of stereotypy and rarely, if ever, in the presence of a stimulus correlated with punishment of stereotypy. Latency measures showed that the antecedent stimulus correlated with punishment served as the discriminative stimulus for the suppression of stereotypy. These results are important insofar as they show that discriminative control by an antecedent stimulus develops with punishment, and because it sometimes may be desirable to establish such control of socially inappropriate behavior.

Punishment and Justification

Previous articleNext article No AccessPunishment and JustificationMitchell N. BermanMitchell N. Berman* For helpful comments on previous drafts and for profitable conversations, I am grateful to Larry Alexander, Dan Brudney, John Deigh, David Dolinko, Strefan Fauble, Les Green, Tom Green, Mark Greenberg, Don Herzog, Douglas Husak, Larry Sager, Scott Shapiro, and Peter Westen; to two anonymous referees and two anonymous editors for this journal; and to workshop participants at the law schools of Columbia University and the University of Michigan and at the Second Annual International Congress on Law and Philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. I am indebted to Jeff McMahan for superb and generous editorial assistance. Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ethics Volume 118, Number 2January 2008 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/527424 Views: 634Total views on this site Citations: 31Citations are reported from Crossref © 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Nathan Hanna Why punitive intent matters, Analysis 81, no.33 (Mar 2021): 426–435.https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anaa068Paul C. Bauer, Andrei Poama, Baogui Xin Does suffering suffice? An experimental assessment of desert retributivism, PLOS ONE 15, no.44 (Apr 2020): e0230304.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230304Gregg D. Caruso Justice without Retribution: An Epistemic Argument against Retributive Criminal Punishment, Neuroethics 13, no.11 (Mar 2018): 13–28.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-018-9357-8Derk Pereboom Incapacitation, Reintegration, and Limited General Deterrence, Neuroethics 13, no.11 (Aug 2018): 87–97.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-018-9382-7Nathan Hanna The Nature of Punishment Revisited: Reply to Wringe, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 23, no.11 (Dec 2019): 89–100.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-019-10047-1Richard L. Lippke Two Ways of Thinking About the Value of Deserved Punishment, The Journal of Ethics 23, no.44 (Jul 2019): 387–406.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-019-09301-6Hsin-Wen Lee A New Societal Self-Defense Theory of Punishment—The Rights-Protection Theory, Philosophia 46, no.22 (Nov 2017): 337–353.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-017-9931-zNathan Hanna Hitting Retributivism Where It Hurts, Criminal Law and Philosophy 118 (Apr 2018).https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-018-9461-1Mariam Kazanjian Philosophers in Prison: Students in the Indiana Women’s Prison College Program Reflect on Philosophical Theories of Punishment, (Sep 2018): 39–49.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97770-6_3FREJ KLEM THOMSEN , Utilitas 30, no.11 ( 2018): 1.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820817000012BENJAMIN S. YOST What's Wrong with Differential Punishment?, Utilitas 29, no.33 (Dec 2016): 257–285.https://doi.org/10.1017/S095382081600039XGregg D. Caruso, Stephen G. Morris Compatibilism and Retributivist Desert Moral Responsibility: On What is of Central Philosophical and Practical Importance, Erkenntnis 82, no.44 (Oct 2016): 837–855.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-016-9846-2Gregg D. Caruso The Public Health-Quarantine Model, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2017).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3068021Steven Sverdlik Giving Wrongdoers What They Deserve, The Journal of Ethics 20, no.44 (May 2016): 385–399.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-016-9217-xStephen J. 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Deterrence and Crime Results

This article offers a comprehensive study of the merits of the legal practice of punishing accomplished crimes more severely than attempted crimes all other things being equal (differential punishment)vis-à-vis the alternative of punishing them with equal sanctions (equal punishment).Unlike the overwhelming majority of the literature on the issue--which focuses on which practice better mirrors the offenders' relative moral deserts--the article evaluates both practices from a consequentialist, deterrence-based point of view. In particular, it shows first that traditional economic theories of the criminal law should yield the conclusion that differential punishment is not superior to equal punishment.The few arguments that the economic literature offers against such conclusion, the article shows, are mistaken. Secondly, drawing on social and psychological findings, the article advances three new arguments showing that, under some likely social and psychological conditions, differential punishment is in fact a superior alternative to equal punishment.

Differential latency and selective nondisclosure in verbal self-reports

Several previous studies have examined the correspondence between self-reports and the delayed identity match-to-sample performance they supposedly described. The present two experiments used similar procedures to explore different characteristics of the self-reports. In both studies, match-to-sample responses were successful (earned points) if they were both correct and faster than a time limit. Following each response, a computer-presented query asked whether the response had been successful, and subjects replied by pressing a "Yes" or "No" button. Experiment 1 analyzed self-report latencies from a previously-published study (Critchfield, 1993a). Latencies generally were longer for self-reports of failure than for self-reports of success. In Experiment 1, a "Yes" or "No" self-report was required to advance the session. In Experiment 2, self-reports were optional. In addition to "Yes" and "No" buttons, subjects could press a third button (a "nondisclosure" option) to remove the self-report query without providing a "Yes" or "No" answer. Across a range of conditions, nondisclosures always occurred more frequently after match-to-sample failures than after successes (i.e., under conditions in which a self-report of failure would be appropriate). The effects observed in the two experiments are consistent with a history of differential punishment for uncomplimentary self-reports, which casual observation and some descriptive studies suggest is a common experience in United States culture. The research necessary to explore this notion should produce data that are of interest to psychologists both within and outside of Behavior Analysis.

Reconciling differences in drug effects on behavior punished or maintained by response‐produced shock

AbstractComparable patterns of behavior maintained by different events are affected similarly by certain drugs and differently by others. The present paper argues that patterns of behavior maintained by response‐produced shock (“shock‐maintained behavior”), although similar in appearance to lever pressing maintained by more conventional positive reinforcers, are generated through differential punishment of long interresponse times; hence, drug effects on this behavior should more closely resemble drug effects on pressing suppressed by punishment. Because the operants suppressed in these procedures are diametrically opposed (long interresponse times vs. pressing), the baseline patterns of behavior will differ (suppressing long interresponse times produces high rates of pressing, punishing pressing produces low rates). Furthermore, any drug‐induced changes in the frequency of the punished operant will result in what appear to be dissimilar drug effects if the rate of only one operant class serves as the dependent variable. That is, drugs that increase the rate of pressing that has been suppressed by punishment should increase long interresponse times similarly suppressed. This results in an overall increase in pressing rate under typical punishment procedures, but a decrease in overall pressing rates (an increase in the rate of punished long interresponse times) under shock‐maintenance procedures. Hence, similar drug effects on these inversely related operants should generate opposite changes in pressing rate under the two sets of procedures. A review of the literature revealed this to hold true in 12 of 15 cases. Drug effects on comparable patterns of pressing maintained by shock or food presentation split more evenly. The literature indicates that, of 21 such, comparisons between pressing maintained under fixed‐interval schedules of food or shock, ten yielded comparable drug effects under both, and 11 yielded dissimilar effects. These results suggest that what appear to be dissimilar drug effects on pressing maintained or suppressed by shock may in fact be similar effects on the inversely related operants differentiated under these procedure.

Interresponse-time punishment: a basis for shock-maintained behavior.

Lever pressing of squirrel monkeys postponed brief electric shock according to a free-operant shock-postponement procedure. Pressing also produced shock with a probability proportional to the duration of the current interresponse time in some conditions, or to the fifth ordinally-preceding interresponse time in others. These conditions provided equal frequencies and temporal distributions of response-produced shocks either contingent on or independent of the current interresponse-time duration, respectively. Shock delivered contingent on the current interresponse-time duration resulted in shorter mean interresponse times and higher overall response rates that shock delivered independent of the current interresponse time. In subsequent conditions, response-produced shocks were sufficient to maintain responding following suspension of the postponement procedure only when those shocks were contingent on the current interresponse time. Presenting shock independent of the current interresponse time, conversely, suppressed response rate and ultimately led to cessation of responding in the absence of a conjoint shock-postponement procedure. These results demonstrate interresponse-time punishment in the absence of any indirect avoidance contingencies based on overall shock-frequency reduction, and strongly support similar interpretation at the more local level of shock-frequency reduction correlated with particular interresponse times. Differential punishment of long interresponse times also provides both an a priori basis for predicting whether a schedule of shock presentation will maintain or suppress responding and a framework for interpreting many of the functional relations between overall response rate and parameters of consequent shock presentation. Finally, these results and others indicate the importance of response-consequence contiguity above and beyong any notion of noncontiguous contingency in the control of behavior.

Differential punishment of other behavior: Effects of pause-dependent shock on variable-interval performance

Three albino rats were exposed to a differential-punishment-of-other-behavior shock schedule superimposed on a variable-interval schedule of food presentation. With this arrangement, failure to barpress for a specified interval since the previous response resulted in delivery of shock. This procedure reliably decreased the number of specified pauses and was accompanied by increases in barpress rates and shifts in the distribution of responses. Subsequent exposure to noncontingent shock produced similar, but quantitatively smaller, changes for two of the three subjects. Training with barpress-dependent shock and reexposure to noncontingent shock further diminished these effects. This study demonstrates that pauses are conditionable units of behavior insofar as they are sensitive to a punishment contingency. In terms of the targeted unit of behavior, the current findings are similar to those obtained with barpress-dependent or interresponse-time-dependent shock schedules and suggest a continuum of response specification.

Free-Operant Escape-Avoidance with Sequential Warning Stimuli II: Effects Of Differential Signal Order Reversal, Extinction, Signal Elimination, and Punishment

Three rats were trained on a multiple continuous escape-avoidance with warning stimuli; continuous escape-avoidance without warning stimuli schedule. During the warning stimuli (WS) components, three 5-sec duration, auditory and visual WS were provided (S1, S2, and S3). When the WS order was scrambled, each rat still emitted the majority of its response in the presence of a particular WS. Elimination of avoidance capability (extinction) produced maintained responding to all WS. Presentation of only one WS produced an increase in responding during its presence. Punishment of responding in the presence of a particular WS produced response suppression during that interval and those after but not before it. In general, the data support the “WS as aversive” view (two-factor theory), but also lend support to the “WS as SD” position. Apparently, a WS may serve simultaneously as both a conditioned aversive stimulus and an SD, thus providing a negative reinforcement analogue to the conjunctive conditioned reinforcer and SD functions that stimuli provide in appetitive situations.