Crime and Deterrence - Essay Example

Through evaluation of literature however, it is clear that much of the efforts to put into place stringent policies and adopt sophisticated tactics by police have not been up to the task of deterring crime. This paper therefore intends to answer the question of whether potential offenders are deterred from committing crime by change in policy over man power or sophistication of police tactics. Policies in criminal justice influence people towards engaging in crime and for those that are meant to influence positively, this occurs through either incapacitation or through deterrence.

When such a policy is imposed and it makes people who would have committed a crime to change their minds, then the policy would be said to be effective in deterring the crime. In other instances, the criminal justice system may impose policies that would prevent possible crimes through putting potential criminals out of circulation such as through detention and this is called incapacitation (Chalfin & McCrary, 2013). It must however be appreciated that not all policies that are adopted that become effective over the task and this therefore justifies the objective of this study in analyzing the effectiveness of adopting the policy of increased police manpower and sophistication on tactics by police in deterring crime as seen through literature.

Chalfin and McCrary conducted an evaluation on studies and other literature on criminal deterrence and established that economics have a fundamental effect in influencing the effectiveness of the tools adopted to deter crime. While focusing on such literature over two decades, they established a mixed outcome where very strong evidence of crime responding to police as well as legitimate market opportunities but little evidence was found to ascertain that crime responds to levels of severity in criminal sanctions imposed.

The whole essence of deterring