Many solutions are counterintuitive and so our problems are seldom solved.
For example, when meeting a bear in the woods, our inclination is to run. The counterintuitive is the safest — freeze. Bears outrun humans.
Similarly, people struggle with what works to prevent and reduce crime.
It doesn’t make sense that punitive practices can make kids worse, but they do. Zero tolerance policies should deter misbehavior at school, but they don’t. A couple of nights in jail should teach him a lesson, but it doesn’t. A few days of incarceration won’t hurt her, but it will.
We can arrest our way out of this problem, but we can’t. Without independent research, our intuition gets us so far.
It’s called common sense, or our normal native intelligence developed by our senses — what we see, hear, and touch.
Common sense tells us that you don’t put your hand on the burning-hot stove. I only had to feel the warmth of the fire to validate my mother’s incessant harangue on the dangers of playing with fire.
[For more of this story, written by Steven Teske, go to http://jjie.org/op-ed-common-s...nile-justice/108855/]
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