See Debatepedia's Global Climate Change Debate Series with the UN Foundation's The People Speak. Press release.
Argument: The threat of punishment in prison does not deter crime
From Debatepedia
]Parent debate
]Supporting quotations
Stuart Henry, Ph.D.., Professor and Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies, College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs, Wayne State University. "On the Effectiveness of Prison as Punishment". Paper presented at the Conference: Incarceration Nation: The Warehousing of America’s Poor. October 24, 2003 - "One might conclude that those incarcerated are less likely to be rational, cost-benefit calculators. Indeed, a look at incarcerated offenders criminal history supports exactly this point. Data shows that the national re-arrest rate is 63%, although can be as high as 84% for juveniles (Open Society, 1997) but that 76% of the state prison population has a previous criminal history of prior convictions. The data for 1997 shows that almost half of those with prior convictions are for violent offenses. Importantly, 59% of recidivists have more than two previous convictions and 43% have more than 3 convictions. Clearly, the threat of prison as punishment did not work for the majority of these offenders. This picture of the deterrence effect of prison as punishment is further undermined when examining the kinds of crimes that those in state prison have committed."