The subject of deterrence is a highly controversial one. An American author said some time ago, somewhat ironically, that one of the basic principles learned by every student of criminology is that "punishment does not deter" (Jeffery, Criminal Behaviour and Learning Theory, 56 J. CRIM. L.C. & P.S. 294 [1965]). On the other hand, a large part of the general public, politicians, police authorities, and judges seem to think very highly of the deterrent potentialities of criminal law. When the author first wrote about the deterrent effects of criminal law twenty years ago it was under the heading: "General Prevention-Illusion or Reality?" When he returned to the subject many years later, in a General Report to the International Congress of Criminology in Montreal in 1965, he had become somewhat bolder. The author ventured to drop the question mark, and in the summary of my report he I stated that "the problem is not one of determining whether such effects exist; it is one of determining the conditions under which they occur and the degree to which they occur." This has become a recurrent theme in the author’s various contributions to the subject, together with another one: The working of the criminal law must always be seen in its full cultural context. There is always a complicated interplay between the law and the multitude of other factors which shape our attitudes and behaviour. The papers collected in this volume represent a span of twenty years. The first paper, originally delivered at a meeting of the Norwegian Association OF Criminalists, was of an exploratory character, an attempt to analyse the problem and confront sweeping statements with available experience. The second is an attempt to develop further the main ideas of the first in a more systematic way. The next three papers deal more fully with limited aspects of the subject. The first draft of these papers was made in 1968 during a stay at the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago, Where I had the benefit of discussions with Norval Morris, Frank Zimring, and Gordon Hawkins. The last paper ("The Future of Criminal Law") which was first react to an English audience, transcends the subject of deterrence, but I trust that the attentive reader will discover the connections. Apart from a few minor corrections, abridgments, and cross references, the papers are presented in the form they were first printed. The author hopes the resulting unavoidable overlapping will be found bearable. There are two exceptions from the principle. The paper on The Moral or Educative Influence of Criminal Law" has been partly rewritten and expanded, and the latter part of the original paper is presented as Appendix 3. The paper "Does Punishment Deter Cringe?", first published in the Canadian Criminal Law Quarterly, has been omitted from the collection in order to avoid too much duplication, but part of its content is presented in Appendix 2. A question of terminology should be mentioned at the outset. The title of the book, as well as the titles of several of the papers, employs the term deterrence. In other papers the expression (general and special) prevention is used. A key to this seeming inconsistency is given in Appendix 1. (Author/publisher)
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