ideas-politics-messages

Often laws seem to be about sending messages rather than getting results.

For example, sometimes 'get tough' laws around addictive drugs are actually thought by addiction researchers to be counterproductive in terms of minimizing the number of people who use these drugs, yet they still pass. Similarly with prisons that focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation. One way of explaining this is that the law is achieving an alternate goal, the goal of sending a message, the message being something like "We think this is really bad and we won't accept it!". Such messages can be read as either or both of a broadcast as to what the consensus social mores are, or as a negotiation between one social group (the voting majority) and another (whoever is using addictive drugs).

I'm not hypothesizing that individuals involved in this process prioritize sending messages over results, just that the structure of the political process leads to this.