The Imprisoner's Dilemma
How to deter low level crime
Petty crime is a serious problem. Part of the relentless upward march of prices is the subsidy people who pay for things supply to those who steal them, while the secondary effects of the lawbreaking, glass cases in shops, private security guards, erode the sense that we live in a fair, civilised society. It’s a worsening problem too - shoplifting is up 42% since 2019, theft from the person 51%.
Of recorded thefts in financial year 2024/2025, 8% resulted in a summons to appear in court. When found guilty the vast majority of defendants receive a fine. Such low odds of being caught, combined with the fact that if you are, the penalty will be to repay some of what you’ve stolen is clearly a very weak deterrent.
The numbers being imprisoned for theft have also gone up since before the pandemic but due to changes to sentencing guidelines discouraging short sentences these will be serious, repeat offenders. Prison is ruinously expensive, to taxpayers and even more so to the convicted. Like parents who ignore their children’s misbehaviour before snapping, screaming and smacking, our response is first too lenient and then too harsh.
We need a form of punishment that’s more effective than non custodial sentences and cheaper than prison. Luckily we don’t have to invent a new solution to this problem we can revive an old one: the stocks. Make people sit in a public place next to a sign explaining their crime so that passers by can see they broke the law. This would be deeply unpleasant (the shame of it would no doubt be compounded by sharing of photos and videos online) but it would be over in a matter of hours and the criminal would be able to begin their rehabilitation straight away, without the disruption to work and family life that prison wreaks.
The stocks fell out of favour during the Victorian period when an increasingly professional state sought to tackle society’s problems with as little input from the man, or the mob, on the street as possible. We’re at the other end of that tunnel now. The professional state is swamped with problems it can’t fix and the mob is us, ordinary citizens who are sick of subsidising those who take what they want without paying.
Committing crimes is dishonourable; it’s right to use shame to correct that behaviour and it’s right to recruit the law-abiding majority as partners in inflicting that shame. To say to the criminals making society more expensive and worse that we, the people who play by the rules, think their behaviour is bad and we want it to stop.