The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 4: Deterrence
Page 6: When can deterrence work?
Deterrence only matters for crimes that are planned, or where there was time (and inclination) to think.
Still, once you rule out teenagers, angry emotional or irrational people, the hungry or addicted, the clueless, and the spur-of-the-moment… there ARE a few cases where deterrence DOES come into play.
Plotting man on the phone, saying “Listen up, here’s the plan…”
In those cases where deterrence COULD work, how DOES it work?
Deterrence is what kept Fabrice Tourre’s bosses from leaving a paper trail (or an e-trail) acknowledging that they had any idea that he was actively picking “loser mortgages” to go into the ABACUS securities package that he was putting together with John Paulson, and that Paulson would subsequently sell short to a profit of $1 billion. Tourre seemed to have no such fear of being caught.
An alternative explanation is that Tourre’s bosses were truly in the dark and they let their underlings build a $1 billion portfolio without supervision. (I could believe this if it were a mutual fund and it were amassed by taking in customers’ money and then buying assets, but to construct the portfolio and _then_ try to sell it? $1 billion of _their own money_? No way.)
I feel like if there were no legal implications from punching someone on in the face, they’re would be a lot more people punched in the face. maybe that’s just me. But see. I am deterred