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Why aren't we all criminals?

In the 1960s a seventeen year-old youth was walking up Haverstock Hill in North London when he spotted a pound note lying on the pavement. He immediately picked it up and handed it in at the nearest police station. Allowing for inflation, many people would do the same nowadays if they found a ten pound note in the street, particularly if it was in an identifiable envelope or purse.

In these days of pervasive crime, we tend to assume that our only protection from total lawlessness is the deterrent effect of an ever harsher criminal justice system that promises tougher sentences and police officers with zero tolerance.

It is a shocking statistic that one third of all males will have a criminal record by the age of 30. Yet this still means that two thirds of males and the majority of females will have no criminal record. We tend to put a vast amount of effort into trying to understand the motives and to do battle with the minority of people who do commit crimes. We rarely try to understand the motives of the majority who do not commit crimes, with a view to figuring out how to nurture and facilitate pro-social behaviour.

I believe that law-abiding people can be put into two crude categories: the self-righteous and the rational choosers. The self-righteous are like our youth who hands in money at the police station - they want to do right and will not offend because it is morally wrong. The rational choosers are so-called because they conform to the behavioural theory of classicism: people behave in a manner that maximises their pleasure and minimises their pain. These are the people who would pocket a found ten pound note if they were reasonably confident that there was no chance they would be caught and prosecuted for theft.

There is a third crude category of the population: the outlaws. These are the minority of people who break the law regardless of the deterrence of possible capture and harsh punishment - recidivists and chronic addicts among them. 

• The self-righteous: "I abide by the law of the land because it's wrong to break the law. I don't want to cause any distress or suffering".
• The rational chooser: "I usually abide by the law because I don't want to get a criminal record. I have too much to lose if I got caught and it would be humiliating. I sometimes break the law if I am certain I can get away with it ".
• The outlaw: "I break the law because I'm a criminal. I'll get arrested sooner or later, so I might as well carry on offending in the meantime. What have I got to lose? I've got no hope of making it in the conventional system".

 It is important (and crucial in terms of policy) to note that these categories, as applied to individuals are permeable and interchangeable over time and according to context. Yet so much crime control policy assumes that one's behaviour is fixed, with the result that we hear slogans such as "beating the criminal". In reality, outlaws at sixteen could quite feasibly become self-righteous pillars of society by the age of thirty, if they got the right breaks and weren't stereotyped and scapegoated. Equally, people who behave outlandishly in one context (at a football match, for example) could be exemplars of propriety at their grandparents silver wedding anniversary.

Current crime control policy is aimed almost exclusively at deterring the rational choosers, on the assumption that this is the only way to staunch the floodgates of criminality supposedly inherent in us all. With regard to the outlaws, the criminal justice system incarcerates the few it catches, on the basis that as they are, and forever will be "criminals", they must be kept out of circulation as the only means of preventing them re-offending. We spend billions of pounds annually maximising the pain potential and minimising the pleasure potential of crime, as our sole defence. We think we can control crime almost exclusively through deterrence and incapacitation. This undoubtedly curbs the behaviour of a significant quantity of the population, but has no effect on the majority of outlaws who don't get arrested and is of total irrelevance to the self-righteous. Quite apart from the fact that this approach only hits part of the target, it gives a very demeaning message to all of us: that we are all incapable of behaving ourselves.

I know there is the old platitude that law-abiding (self-righteous) people have nothing to fear when they see themselves being tracked by CCTV cameras in the street, followed by uniformed security staff round the aisles of supermarkets, frisked by bouncers at city centre pubs and curtain-twitched by neighbourhood watch co-ordinators, but many find it offensive and intimidating.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that we should abandon all measures aimed at: reducing the opportunities for crime, increasing the likelihood of apprehension and guaranteeing just sentencing. I just worry that we think we can reduce crime merely by applying these measures with more vigour, ubiquity and harshness. More of the same, only harder, is like hammering a nail that is already sunk into the wood.

In addition to deterrence and apprehension we need to think about: how we deal with the outlaws (give them something to lose? intensive rehabilitation programmes if they are caught, rather than just locking them up?). And most importantly of all, we need to think about how we can increase the numbers of the self-righteous group (parenting guidance?, child support networks? early personal and social education?). Just think how much money and wasted effort (not to mention wasted lives) we could save if the majority of people returned ten pound notes to their rightful owners because it is the right thing to do.

Finally, it is important to point out that citizens will be more inclined to do the right thing if our social, economic and political system is perceived as fair and just. A tall order? Well, we could make a start... isn't democracy supposed to be about fairness and justice? Conviviality rather than control?