My colleague Don Boudreaux, Chair of the GMU Economics Department and sometimes Professor in the GMU School of Law reminds us of the logic of marginal deterrence:
13 December 2004
The Editor, New York Post
Dear Editor:
Readers opposed to milder drug sentences (Letters, Dec. 13) forget that an important goal of the structure of criminal penalties is to deter those who commit lesser crimes from committing more serious crimes.
In New York, the minimum sentence for second-degree murder is 15 years. For first-degree murder it’s 20 years. If the minimum mandatory sentence for the sale of more than two ounce of heroin or cocaine remains at 15 years, the additional punishment suffered by drug dealers who commit 2nd-degree murder during drug sales gone bad is now as low as nothing. For first-degree murder the additional penalty is as low as five years.
Punishing drug sellers as harshly as we punish murderers turns drug sellers into murderers.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
To elaborate–if you get the same penalty for simply selling drugs to Mr. X (who can then rat you out) versus by selling drugs to Mr. X and then murdering him so that he can’t rat you out, you will be providing strong incentives to murder the rat if you are afraid that he will turn you in.
A reader recently queried whether someday we might see an economist on the Supreme Court. Sounds like we could use some economists in Congress first. Now that Dick Armey and Phil Gramm have both retired, are there any trained economists left in Congress?
Update:
I have been reminded, that the premise of the marginal deterrence criticism is that the sentences are served concurrently rather than consecutively. I am told by readers more expert in the particularities of New York law that New York would generally impose consecutive rather than concurrent sentencing in the example of a murder committed in the course of a drug deal.
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