This article opens with the consequentialist–deontologist debate, with the former concerned about the relevance of punitive measures against their crime reducing potentials, while the latter highlights punishment as censure of wrongful acts and the proportion of the punishment to the degree of crime. The article briefly discusses the empirical research on the impact of penal sanctions and focuses on three main kinds of empirical research into possible general deterrent effects—namely, association studies, quasi-experimental studies, and contextual and perceptual studies. It addresses (...) the methodological issues involved in deterrence research and summarizes the results precisely. This article also discusses reductivism in the view of the possibility that penal sanctions could influence the offender's will. The results suggest that crime preventive aims can justify sentencing policies only to a limited degree, at least for the foreseeable future. (shrink)

Most offenders, even persistent offenders, eventually desist from crime, and the fastest period of deceleration in the frequency of offending is in the early twenties. This article summarises results from a longitudinal study of desistance from or persistence in crime in this age range, illustrated by three case histories. A key finding is that, because of their deep prior engagement in crime, would-be desisters from repeat offending need to make many adjustments to their patterns of daily life. The authors explain (...) why virtue ethics has been found to be a valuable resource in theorising these results. (shrink)