Caning, punishment, and prison: more thoughts

I saw this tweet going viral:

The fact most people, myself included, would opt into caning over prison, suggests the former is less effective as a deterrent and crime mitigator. Of course, people are going to act in their best interests, including choosing punishment. But punishment, categorically, is not a consumer good. People make consumption choices to maximize their utility, whereas the function of punishment is to subtract utility. The argument that caning or penal colonies are more humane or are nicer, are also arguments for why they would not work compared to prisons.

Similar to Singapore’s healthcare, which is similarly praised for its efficiency, just because something works for small, wealthy, high-trust homogeneous societies, does not mean it will scale to the US. Demographics and other differences play a huge role. Moreover, Singapore’s incarceration rate is average compared to other countries, so it’s not like they have done away with prisons in favor of corporal punishment. More severe crimes, such as involving the sale of drugs, typically mandates a worse punishment than caning.

From the post “Prison is worse and is a more effective deterrent than caning“:

The argument of caning being a more effective deterrent compared to prisons unconvincing. Caning is quick and painful, but when the main argument against prison is that it’s time-consuming and thus inhumane–this is also why it’s effective as a punishment. The people making the argument against prisons over caning inadvertently are making the case for why prison works better as punishment in the first place. They are stating their own preferences. But prison is not a consumer good; it’s punishment.

A common argument is that caning is painful and thus a good deterrent and suitable as punishment. Maybe against some people, but hardened criminals or gang members, who are habituated to pain (such as initiation rites or being shot or stabbed at), are not going to be deterred. For a career criminal, being incarcerated entails a significant loss of revenue.

Regarding how caning would reduce prison costs, I also disagree about incarceration being too expensive, for three key reasons:

First: I posit prison spending has among the highest ROI of any government spending in terms of preventing direct and indirect harm inflicted on society by criminals. A single shoplifter can steal thousands of dollars of merchandise/day, in addition to indirect or secondary harm such as store closures and loss of employment, that can have a ripple effect on society. This is easily more than the nominal annual cost of incarceration per inmate. Violent criminals can cause indirect harm by lowering real estate values and also hurting local businesses. From the post “Prison spending is not too high“:

But sure, let’s quibble over $160/day vs. $120/day when thieves are stealing thousands of dollars/day undeterred. Even a small-time thief can easily steal that much everyday. $160 is just four cans of baby formula, a frequently stolen item due to high resell value and concealability.

Second: Prison spending is assiduously itemized, and costs are kept as low as possible, unlike other government spending, in which there is much less scrutiny over cost. It’s not like prisoners are being housed at the Hamptons or something; austerity is the point.

Third: Prison spending is tiny relative to other spending. From the post “Some thoughts on mass incarceration: why cost is not the issue”:

If wastefulness is the only criterion for assessing the worthiness of policy, then there are way bigger targets than prison spending, which is tiny compared to the both overall federal and state budgets. The annual federal prison budget is just $8 billion, versus $1.2 trillion for healthcare. Medicare fraud and waste is way bigger than prison spending, so why isn’t the left up in arms about that? Because they like Medicare, and they see that the benefits outweigh the inevitable fraud and waste. Same for Social Security fraud and waste. Total federal student loan spending stands at $1.4 trillion

As I explain above, the argument (which you typically see from leftists in an appeal to fiscal conservatives) that ‘mass incarceration is bad because it’s too expensive or wasteful’–is incoherent or intellectually dishonest. This implies far costlier programs with much worse waste ought to be cut instead or prioritized, like healthcare, social security, or education, which, of course, are options the left will never entertain. The actual reason is not cost, but maybe because it’s inhumane, or mass incarceration squanders human capital, or prevents rehabilitation. At least those are honest reasons.

But if cost is a constraint though, scalable crimes should be punished more severely. In the post “Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know: Thoughts”, I make the case that scalable crimes could be punished more severely than crimes that do not scale as well, even if the latter are more violent:

3. To reduce costs, from an ROI perspective, a case can be made for punishing scalable crimes more harshly than crimes which do not scale as well, even if the latter are more heinous. So longer sentences for property crime, particularly theft, and shorter sentences for manslaughter.

So a 20-year sentence for shoplifting, especially in the context of organized crime, could have a higher ROI, direct and indirect, than a 20-year sentence for murder.