Is Dalrymple soft on crime?

Theodore Dalrymple's CBC podcast (see preceding post) is worth listening to even if one is already familiar with most of the ideas and anecdotes in it from his articles in City Journal and elsewhere. One of his statements, however, seems highly questionable. In response to the interviewer's question about a solution to the problem of the recent appearance of pervasive criminal violence in English society—violence which now imposes a de facto curfew on old people, for example—Dalrymple says,

I think that the law can do quite a lot, but it can't do everything; and in any case, one doesn't want a population that behaves in a reasonable and civilized way only because it fears that if it doesn't, there'll be a tap on the shoulder and they'll be taken off to prison. First of all I don't think that's possible, but secondly it would be very unpleasant even if it were possible.

In other words, Dalrymple seems to be saying that one shouldn't attempt to rely on increased penalties to curb criminal behaviour, even where those penalties would successfully cut crime rates, because one wants citizens who behave in a civilized fashion out of their free will rather than out of fear of the state.

If so, this is as crazy as the ideas of the liberal intelligentsia whom Dalrymple spends so much time criticizing. A state of public order maintained by the fear of criminal sanctions is, indeed, not an ideal one. But to insist on the ideal here, where there is no demonstrated means of achieving it, is mere progressive utopianism. If a society has a choice between pervasive criminal activity and coerced law-abidingness, it is the latter that is preferable. Would you prefer to be knifed in the street, or for your prospective assailant to be deterred from knifing you by the fear of jail or other punishment? One can reasonably go further than this, and ask whether it is not better for the assailant himself to be prevented from committing crimes, even by the gross threat of punishment, than to be allowed to commit them unhindered. I don't think traditional morality would have had any hesitation in saying that deterrence is preferable from this point of view as well.

Under the present régime of derisory penalties for various serious criminal offenses in England (I'm not aware of the situation in Scotland), the short answer to the question "What is to be done about English crime?" should presumably be, "Crack down on it." It is alarming that this idea seems to be too tough for even one of Britain's most independent-minded writers to swallow. If the present ruling establishment refuses even to contemplate such measures, make no mistake: there are fascists waiting in the wings who will be only too happy to assume the responsibility for imposing them.