To Deter and Punish examines why and how the United States and its Western European allies came to treat nonstate "terrorists" as a key threat. Silke Zoller traces Western state officials' responses to terrorism from the first Palestinian hijacking in 1968 to Ronald Reagan's militarization of counterterrorism in the early 1980s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, governments in North America and Western Europe faced a new transnational threat: militants who crossed borders with impunity to commit attacks. These violent actors cooperated in hijacking planes, taking hostages, and organizing assassinations, often in the name of national liberation movements from the decolonizing world. How did this form of political violence become what we know today as “international terrorism”—lacking in legitimacy and categorized first and foremost as a crime? To Deter and Punish examines why and how the United States and its Western European allies came to treat nonstate “terrorists” as a key threat to their security and interests. Drawing on a multinational array of sources, Silke Zoller traces Western state officials’ attempts to control the meaning of and responses to terrorism from the first Palestinian hijacking in 1968 to Ronald Reagan’s militarization of counterterrorism in the early 1980s. She details how Western states sought to criminalize border-crossing nonstate violence—and thus delegitimized offenders’ political aspirations. U.S. and European officials pressured states around the world to join agreements requiring them to create and enforce criminal laws against alleged individual terrorists. Zoller underscores how recently decolonized states countered that only a more equitable global system capable of addressing political grievances would end the violence. To Deter and Punish offers a new account of the emergence of modern counterterrorism that pinpoints its international dimensions—a story about diplomats and bureaucrats as well as national liberation militancy and the processes of decolonization.

A 2022 PROSE Award finalist in Legal Studies and Criminology A 2022 American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award Finalist A Behavioral Scientist’s Notable Book of 2021 Freakonomics for the law—how applying behavioral science to the law can fundamentally change and explain misbehavior Why do most Americans wear seatbelts but continue to speed even though speeding fines are higher? Why could park rangers reduce theft by removing “no stealing” signs? Why was a man who stole 3 golf clubs sentenced to 25 years in prison? Some laws radically change behavior whereas others are consistently ignored and routinely broken. And yet we keep relying on harsh punishment against crime despite its continued failure. Professors Benjamin van Rooij and Adam Fine draw on decades of research to uncover the behavioral code: the root causes and hidden forces that drive human behavior and our responses to society’s laws. In doing so, they present the first accessible analysis of behavioral jurisprudence, which will fundamentally alter how we understand the connection between law and human behavior. The Behavioral Code offers a necessary and different approach to battling crime and injustice that is based in understanding the science of human misconduct—rather than relying on our instinctual drive to punish as a way to shape behavior. The book reveals the behavioral code’s hidden role through illustrative examples like: • The illusion of the US’s beloved tax refund • German walls that “pee back” at public urinators • The $1,000 monthly “good behavior” reward that reduced gun violence • Uber’s backdoor “Greyball” app that helped the company evade Seattle’s taxi regulators • A $2.3 billion legal settlement against Pfizer that revealed how whistleblower protections fail to reduce corporate malfeasance • A toxic organizational culture playing a core role in Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal • How Peter Thiel helped Hulk Hogan sue Gawker into oblivion Revelatory and counterintuitive, The Behavioral Code catalyzes the conversation about how the law can effectively improve human conduct and respond to some of our most pressing issues today, from police misconduct to corporate malfeasance.

How can the brutal and costly enterprise of criminal punishment be justified? This book makes a provocative, original contribution to the philosophical literature and debate on the morality of punishing, arguing that punishment is justified in the duties that offenders incur as a result of their wrongdoing.

Reprint of the fourth edition, which contains an additional text attributed to Voltaire. Originally published anonymously in 1764, Dei Delitti e Delle Pene was the first systematic study of the principles of crime and punishment. Infused with the spirit of the Enlightenment, its advocacy of crime prevention and the abolition of torture and capital punishment marked a significant advance in criminological thought, which had changed little since the Middle Ages. It had a profound influence on the development of criminal law in Europe and the United States.