The idea that the tendency to commit crime can be related to a ratio of net rewards of crime to the net rewards of noncrime, as expressed in the discussion of Wilson and Herrnstein's theory, offers a type of cost-benefit analysis of crime that has long been intuitive in the population. That is, we tend to accept the idea that criminals will commit crimes as long as it pays to do so but that they will not commit crimes when the costs become too high. After all, this is the basis of our penal system, or at last that element of it dedicated to the concept of deterrent. We devise punishments which are intended to convince the criminal--both the one being punished and any future, budding criminals who may be watching--that "crime does not pay" because part of the cost of doing business is to spend large amounts of time in jail. We discuss the deterrent effect of the death penalty as if putting one man to death convinces other would-be murderers not to commit their crime because the same thing will happen to them. Yet, we need to expand our conception of why the criminal commits a crime, and thus of what value these so-called deterrents actually have. The theory offered by Katz should be seen as just such an expansion.
The theory of Wilson and Herrnstein sees crime as a "rational choice" made by the criminal, who weighs the pros and cons of his or her actions before undertaking them, considering the costs an benefits and deciding how to behave on the basis of which is greater. The attempt by Wilson and Herrnstein to construct a comprehensive theory of criminal behavior from an individualistic perspective. The theorists did not concentrate on situational factors that might be fortuitous but instead examined criminality, or individual characteristics leading to the propensity to commit criminal acts. They argued that crime was a rational choice, a preferred course of action developed through a consideration of the costs and benefit...