1. This book introduces various new concepts....from deterrence curve, to legal conscious, and legal culture
2. THe book does an amazing job of explaining the 3 "clusters" that determine how law affects behavior: peer pressure, rewards/punishment, and the "intangibles" morality, legitimacy, consensus etc.
3. Friedman as usual does an amazing job of somehow bouncing between analogy to study to essay and somehow bouncing right back to the point he's trying to bring out.
Cons:
1. Because of the sort of "bounce around" style, Friedman writes in this book (like his other books) is a very tedious and . As a result this is one of those 200-300 page books that takes the time of a 600 page book to read because you have to often pause to grasp what he's saying at times.
2. THe third cluster needed a singular clear definition or at least more focus on connecting that cluster to law. There were so many various terms within that one cluster that it was sort of hard to come up with a concrete way to summarize it all.
Overall an informative and entertaining read that will change the way you look at the impact behind the law. I would personally recommend read this along with another book that does the same thing "The Legal Analyst". It's another bounce around book that reads like a 600 page book but ends up being worth it because it changes the way you evaluate the law and it' impact on society.
It is quite interesting to learn about the deterrence curve and how it flattens out quickly when the most egregious comes are involved because most people are already really likely to shun away from those crimes due to social norms and moral issues. This actually reminds me of something I learned about forensic psychology, so if the suspect is mentally ill and not able to control his/her own behavior, then the forensic psychologist would make a psychiatric assessment of that person to make sure it is the case, then he/she would just be sent to a mental hospital instead of being incarcerated. In other words, this is indirectly blaming their crimes on their inherited mental abnormality, rather than on those individuals. It is as if to say those people were born with genes to commit crimes, and their brains are hardwired differently so they are incapable of monitoring their own behaviors and adjusting to the social norms. And a lot of studies about stigma associated with mentally ill people have shown similar outcomes. Although the public is becoming more and more lenient towards people with inborn mental illnesses, they still more or less show discrimination against them in terms of job hiring, school acceptance etc because deep inside their minds, they think those people are incurable. On the other hand, there are some extremely evil criminals who would try to escape from justice by faking a mental illness, which sometimes could be hard to detect. I guess my question is whether or not we should treat those criminals equally, regardless of their mental states.