Attempted Crimes and Punishment

The punishment of criminal attempts has frequently been viewed as a cost-effective way of lowering the crime rate. It is believed that the attempted crimes should be punished as severely as the committed crimes. The current paper will demonstrate that the severe punishment of attempted crimes cannot help in solving the problem: as in the case when the punishment for a completed crime does not sustain people from doing it, then neither analogous nor milder penalties for unsuccessful attempts will assist. Therefore, the encumbrance of intimidation falls completely upon punishments for committed crimes. The paper will demonstrate three problems appearing from the discussion and debate on the topic of attempted crimes and their punishment, the problems of ‘manifest impossibility’ and ‘happenstance impossibility’, and the notions of ‘punishment difference’ and ‘moral luck’. The provision of more severe punishment to attempted crimes is against common practice. Therefore, the practice of punishing attempted crimes is theoretical in its nature.

The criminal law suggests that attempt is villainy, which appears when an individual comes hazardously close to the implementation of a criminal act, and has an intention to commit the crime but does not actually commit it. The individual may have performed all the required steps to commit the crime but still failed, or the tentative may have been discarded or impeded at a late stage. The attempt is known to go beyond ordinary projection or arranging and is different from other incomplete criminal acts including machination to commit a crime or incitement of a crime. There are numerous particular crimes of attempt incorporating attempted murder, which is differentiated by cognizance. Punishment is frequently less stringent in comparison with the cases when the attempted crime had been committed. Refusal from the attempt may appoint culpable protection partially in accordance with the scope, to which the attempt was rejected openly and voluntarily. The essentiality of the crime of attempt in legal terms concerns the fact that the appellate has failed to commit the actus reus (which stands for the “guilty act”) of the complete villainy but has the straight and peculiar intention to commit that complete villainy. The normal rule for the arrangement of criminal responsibility implies the manifestation an actus reus escorted by a men’s rea (stands for the “guilty mind”) at the appropriate time. Attempted crimes are captivating types of crime and are believed to be a gold mine for the theorists. Three exceptional issues in the law of attempts unclose a great deal concerning culpability, about how people judge how wrong crime is and why actually people should think it is wrong at all. One of these problems concerns the punishment of attempts in the connection to the punishment of the completed crime. A second problem concerns liability for an attempt when the commission of the completed crime is improbable. A third problem reveals itself when people consider what was done and attempt to detect the threshold for attempt liability.

Intuitive Feelings

The first of these problems appears when it is noticed that attempts are punished less strictly than completed crimes even despite the fact that the attempt incorporated the conduct, which was no discrepant than it would be in the case of the completed crime. In this case, intuitive feelings concerning the punishment for attempts that are reflected in the law should be explained, and not how the discrepancy can be made to appear rational when crime and punishment are appropriate as materials for philosophical invention. For instance, one proposal asks people to view those who perform exactly the same criminal acts as participants in a lottery, in which winners and losers start out on equal terms. Those who fail in their criminal endeavors are regarded as winners, and those who succeed are regarded as losers, with punishments assigned accordingly. Nevertheless, it leaves the question of why those who have done exactly the same thing should be punished differently when there is a difference in outcome attributable entirely to chance. This problem reveals a great truth about conduct and punishment. People are ineluctably tied to the feelings in deciding when and how much to punish a crime. Thus, when a measure of punishment is decided, people inevitably find themselves affected by what has happened than by what has been done. This concerns a matte of moral luck, but that is not appropriate. It is rather a matter of luck pre-empting any opportunity for moral assessment. The chance and not culpability drives the engines of punishment.

Happenstance and Manifest Impossibility

The second problem regarding attempts is no less instructive. Sometimes, it appears that the successful crime could never have been committed even though everything was done that would normally accomplish. Nevertheless, the perpetrator was obviously unaware of the impossibility and had every reason to believe he/she would accomplish the murder, for instance. This is called the case of happenstance impossibility. It is important to note that in assessing the conduct, all of its elements should be taken into account including whatever the accused knew or believed or thought he/she was doing for those mental elements are at the heart of the control center that confers upon behavior the status of conduct. The law reflects this difference in the threat of harm that characterizes the conduct by calling one attempted murder and the other something less serious though still a completed crime in its own. There are other cases, in which the facts also make it plain that the completed crime could not be committed, but in these cases, what was done could never have lead to the intended result no matter what the circumstance though the person who did these acts thought it could. These are the case that might be called a manifest impossibility. Cases of happenstance impossibility are cases, in which there is a serious threat of ham in what was done, and the threat exists even though the harm could not occur. Conduct of a kind that might have produced harm is what interests the criminal law, and the conduct here is of that kind since it was only by chance that the harm did not occur. On the other hand, cases of manifest impossibility are cases, in which the conduct posed no threat of harm; cases, in which it cannot be said that what was done, might have produced harm. When the treatment of harm is lacking, the conduct fails to arouse criminal concern though it might possibly call for some other sort of intervention to address the untoward aspects of such behavior.

Threshold of Liability

The third great challenge for the law of attempts is deciding when the threshold of liability is reached. Under the common law, what was done must come dangerously close to the completed crime if there is to be attempt liability. No matter how unequivocal, complete preparation would not be enough by itself. The point of importance here concerns whether a sufficient threat of harm is presented by the conduct in question. However, from the moral point o view, it makes no difference whether one is in the car on the way to the bank when apprehended, or whether the arrest is made in the midst of work on a safe, with an acetylene torch in the bowels of the bank. Rules concerning abandonment are to the same effect. A change of mind leading to voluntary abandonment can avoid liability if it takes place early enough.

Punishment Difference

Almost all jurisdiction systems around the globe punish the attempt, which succeeds more rigorously than the attempt, which fails. For instance, murder is punished more rigorously on the contrary to the attempted murder. Nevertheless, probably the general mass of criminal law theorists discord with this “punishment difference” for completed and committed crimes and incomplete offenses. In fact, in regard to the standard educated view, effective attempts merit no more punishment than failed attempts. It practically means that murder deserves the same punishment as the attempted murder. On the other hand, the critics of the “punishment difference” argue that a result apportions from the execution of an act is out of the control of the performer and is solely an issue of luck. They are certain that a performer should not be accountable for the issues, which are out of the control of the actor and which are a question of luck. Therefore, critics believe that punishment difference is grounded on a performer’s condign punishment, and not on consequentiality concerns. Thus, punishment difference is illogical, irrational and arbitrary. On the other hand, defenders of the “punishment difference” address to the fact that people are accountable for the outcomes of the committed actions and these outcomes are important even if they are out of the control and are subject to the perversity of luck.

Moral Luck

The debate between these opposite claims is a constituent of the bigger issue known as the problem of “moral luck”. This problem reviews why and to what scop, the matters, which are out of the performer’s control and subject to the possibility and the allotment, can be appropriate in evaluating a performer’s moral and legal merit. The intractability of this problem starts from the discrepant precedence that each side demonstrates. The defenders of the debate claim that it concerns the universal intuition incarnated in almost every legal jurisdiction, the results of which actually matter. On the other side, critics of the debate rely on the unquestionable argument arising from a matter of luck, for which people committing the crime are not accountable and do not deserve being punished, and the principle, the results of which are out of our control. Thus, critics accept that they cannot account for the intuitions and acknowledge that they are improbable to alter the positions of practical-inclined legislators; a number of defenders understand that they can provide no logical, principled reason sustaining their position. Therefore, the intuition and the existent legal practices support the defenders while principled reasons support the critics. In such a way, the debate presupposes that it regards the contradicting purport that both sides are right. Thus, the matter out of the control and the matter of luck should not elevate the condign punishment while the committed crimes condign bigger punishment in contrast to the uncompleted crimes. Therefore, the mere discrepancy, for example, between murder and attempted murder concern the illicit outcome, which appears in the first case but not in the second. Thus, the appropriateness of that illicit outcome for deserved punishment appears obscure. In fact, the presence or absence of an illicit outcome, which segregates murder from attempted murder, cannot be a matter of luck and is morally pertinent to a performer’s deserved penalty. This provides the defenders of the debate with a principled reason to sustain the nearly universal intuitions and existent practices while avoiding the critics’ opposition concerning what is out of the control and concerns a matter of luck cannot be a basic ground for a deserved penalty. In fact, attempted crimes cannot be estimated similarly to committed crimes, as if the punishment for committing a successful crime does not restrain a person from committing the crime, the severe punishment for attempted crime also cannot deter from committing the crime.

Thus, the paper demonstrated that there is also a belief that sanctions against uncompleted attempts can merely restrain possible offenders if these people take the probability of defection into account. Nevertheless, if people under the conditions where a severe penalty for the successful commitment of the crime are not constrained, it is improbable that the analogous severe penalty for defection will assist. Thus, the penalty for unsuccessful attempts is redundant and, therefore, ineffective. On the other hand, in the case when such an argument is sound, it provides a rationalization not for lower penalties in the case of defection as is frequently believed but for the absence of punishment at all. It is explained by the fact that if a severe penalty for defection is improbable to inhibit and is accordingly unjustified from an intimidation perspective, then a comparatively indulgent punishment should be even more repulsive in deterring. Therefore, the indulgent penalty is no more exonerate in comparison with the severe penalty. In the case when the punishment for a completed crime does not sustain people from doing it, then neither analogous nor milder penalties for unsuccessful attempts will assist. Therefore, the burden of intimidation falls completely upon punishments for committed crimes. Due to the fact that attempted crimes include numerous complex cases, incorporating moral luck, happenstance impossibility, and manifest impossibility, they cannot be treated analogously to committed crimes. Therefore, attempted crimes should not be punished as severely as committed crimes.