Punishment policy cannot reduce crime independently of the social order

Evidence

In its final form, particularly in the closing chapters, in which Kirchheimer supported his arguments to a great extent with statistical material, the book showed that punishment policies had no influence on the crime rate, and that neither a severe policy with the goal of deterrence nor a mild policy with the goal of character reform was capable of making people adapt to unbearable conditions. Insteadand with its wealth of material and its historical method the book as a whole demonstrated thisthe nature and extent of crime and the scope for prison policy depended on the social order, which was thoroughly hostile, and only capable of change in its economic and political forms. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 968

Categorization

• XREF: Prefigures the later ‘nothing works’ punishment literature (Martinson 1974) and abolitionist criminology; also connects to Foucault’s Discipline and Punish on penality as social control. — connects to: Moral self-sanctions and social censure deter crime more than legal penalties do; Penal reform fails whenever it is detached from general social progress — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 969; Prisons demonstrably fail to reduce the crime rate — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 402 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Which specific statistical chapters and data did Kirchheimer use to support the no-correlation claim? Worth chasing in the original 1939 text.

Broader Connections

• Penal reform fails whenever it is detached from general social progress #corroborates (0.92) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 969
• Moral self-sanctions and social censure deter crime more than legal penalties do #expands (0.85)
• Prisons demonstrably fail to reduce the crime rate #exemplifies (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 402