Turning the lab into Jeremy Bentham's panopticon: The effect of punishment on offenders and non-offenders

Arbeitspapier

The most famous element in Bentham's theory of punishment, the Panopticon Prison, expresses his view of the two purposes of punishment, deterrence and special prevention. We investigate Bentham's intuition in a public goods lab experiment by manipulating how much information on punishment experienced by others is available to would-be offenders. Compared with the tone that Jeremy Bentham set, our results are non-expected: If would-be offenders learn about contributions and punishment of others at the individual level, they contribute much less to the public project. Our results confirm the special prevention effect but show that the deterrence effect is smaller the more information on individual punishment is available.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods ; No. 2010,06

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Public Goods ; Criminal Law ; Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
• Thema: Punishment ; Deterrence ; Special Prevention ; Jeremy Bentham ; Experiment ; Public Good ; Strafe ; Kriminalpolitik ; Informationsverbreitung ; Öffentliches Gut ; Trittbrettfahrerverhalten ; Test

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Engel, Christoph ; Irlenbusch, Bernd
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2010

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/38859
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ