One of the former members of the U.S. Sentencing Commission was an economist who proposed the following reasoning during a conference on sentencing held in Ottawa in 1988. Since there was no doubt that doubling all fares for air travel would result, at least momentarily, in fewer customers using air transportation, it was presumed to follow at least as clearly that noticeably increasing the punishment for crime would result in fewer persons willing to engage in crime. What the economist had overlooked was that the probability that you would have to pay for your plane ticket at the increased rate is very high; actually, you cannot fly unless you have bought a ticket. In contrast, the probability that a criminal will be caught and suffer the consequences of his or her behavior is perceived to be rather low in the case of most criminals, and with regard to certain crimes, such as break and enter, is actually quite low. Hence, increasing criminal punishments will not deter criminals as automatically as raising the cost of air travel will deter potential customers.