“The research literature now reflects a broad consensus that offenders are deterred to a greater extent by the certainty of punishment than by the severity of punishment.” – Aaron Chalfin, Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania and a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center
On why we are more sensitive to likelihood than severity of punishment:
“People are myopic.
Most of us discount unlikely events that might happen in the distant future relative to certain events that will occur in the near future. If I drive home from the bar while intoxicated, I won’t have to sleep in my car tonight, a welcome benefit that I will experience in the present.
And while it’s risky to drive drunk, the odds are good that I won’t cause an accident or be caught by a police officer during my short drive home. Of course, if I am caught, I’ll be arrested and adjudicated, an experience that, for many people, would be life altering. But that probably won’t happen – the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that there are between 500 and 2,000 DUI violations committed for every one DUI violator arrested – and, even if it does, my penalty won’t be meted out for many months.
For people who commit crimes, many of whom are young and male, and some of whom have already found themselves involved in a high-risk lifestyle, a tendency to discount the future is probably even more ingrained than it is for the average person.
Punishment must grapple with this seemingly fundamental pillar of human nature.”
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Criminal justice is not an area of expertise for me. Still, data indicating that the likelihood of enforcement is a stronger deterrent of bad behavior than the severity of the punishment itself struck me as relevant in a more generalized way to how we should use feedback.
In leadership and organizational development we often talk about the power of regular feedback to drive learning and behavior change. Still, it may not be as simple as just increasing feedback frequency.
First, in order to catch people getting something right (in a way that gets the desired outcomes) or doing something wrong (in a way that doesn’t gets the desired outcomes), we have to actually have (or create) enough bandwidth to notice.
Then, what you do with that bandwidth also matters. If people feel you are watching them ONLY to catch their mistakes, many of them will feel nervous, leading them to make MORE mistakes.
How about positive feedback? Under some conditions it’s better to catch people doing things right often so you can give them frequent, timely positive feedback. In contrast, some people may prefer that you just leave them alone and occasionally make a really big deal out of something they have done particularly well.
One thing that does seem clear is that we ALL need access to feedback loops to help us learn what we should continue, stop, start or change.
When we provide feedback, we need to do so in a way that makes the desired learning feel salient so the receiver is more likely to remember it when it matters. At the same, time we probably also need to be careful to do so in a way that doesn’t feel punitive.
In the final analysis, delivering harsh feedback on an inconsistent basis may be less effective for driving behavior change than providing no feedback at all…
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CIAO
Context ・ Intention ・ Action ・ Outcome
© Dana Cogan, 2026, all rights reserved.