Differential Deterrence: Studying Heterogeneity and Changes in Perceptual Deterrence Among Serious Youthful Offenders (original) (raw)
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Studying Deterrence among High-Risk Adolescents. Juvenile Justice Bulletin. NCJ 248617
2015
How and why do many serious adolescent offenders stop offending while others continue to commit crimes? This series of bulletins presents findings from the Pathways to Desistance study, a multidisciplinary investigation that attempts to answer this question. Highlights The Pathways to Desistance study followed more than 1,300 serious juvenile offenders for 7 years after their conviction. In this bulletin, the authors present some key findings on the link between perceptions of the threat of sanctions and deterrence from crime among serious adolescent offenders. Selected findings are as follows: • There was no meaningful reduction in offending or arrests in response to more severe punishment (e.g., correctional placement, longer stays). • Policies targeting specific types of offending may be more effective at deterring youth from engaging in these specific offenses as opposed to general policies aimed at overall crime reduction. • In response to an arrest, youth slightly increased their risk perceptions, which is a necessary condition for deterrence. • Creating ambiguity about detection probabilities in certain areas or for certain types of crime may have a deterrent effect by enhancing the perceived risk of getting caught.
Public attitudes about the culpability and punishment of young offenders
Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 2006
Opinions of 789 community adults were individually assessed, using a video-clip of an actual armed robbery and other measures, to determine whether attitudes toward the culpability and appropriate punishment of young offenders were linked to offenders' age, race, and physical appearance. Three major findings emerged: (1) community adults endorse the view that criminal choices of young offenders are influenced by their developmental immaturity and attribute more responsibility for the criminal act as the actor gets older; (2) the public has a relatively strong preference for differential treatment of juvenile and adult offenders; and (3) attitudes about culpability and punishment are not influenced by the culprit's race, physical maturity, or appearance of ''toughness.'' Indications that punitive public opinion toward youth crime may be changing and implications for juvenile justice policy of the study's findings are discussed.
Perceived Penal Sanction and Self-Reported Criminality: A Neglected Approach to Deterrence Research
Social Problems, 1972
Interviews with 321 university students were used to determine relationships between admitted marijuana use and theft and perceptions of the severity and certainty of punishment. Use of marijuana and theft activity were expected to be least frequent among those who: (1) perceive the harshest penalties for marijuana possession and petty larceny; (2) perceive the greatest likelihood of receiving the maximum penalty upon conviction for those offenses; (3) expect that law violaters are, generally, caught by the police; (4) have the greatest familiarity with others who have been arrested for theft or marijuana possession; and (5) perceive the greatest chance of being arrested themselves, should they steal or use marijuana. The data suggest that (1) perceptions of severe punishment are largely unrelated to admitted theft or marijuana use; (2) flgeneralft deterrence appears not to be working for either offense --that is, punishment of notherft when perceived by nego appears unrelated to negossn admitted criminality; (3) the expectation that arrest or maximum penalties upon conviction would be likely (certain) for oneself appears somewhat related to lower levels of marijuana use and larceny. However, these latter relationships are stronger for marijuana use than they are for theft. (Author)
2014
This paper provides an econometric assessment of the deterrence model, with a specific focus on violent crime in England and Wales. It finds that beliefs about the probability of arrest are substantially lower than official arrests rates, but when adjusting for non-reporting by victims, the perceived risk of arrest and actual arrest rate are very similar. Further, no empirical evidence is found to the effect that perception of the probability of arrest differ between criminals and non-criminals. Perceptions about general perceived risk of arrest are not found to be related to an individual's own criminal and arrest history. Instead, an individual's beliefs about the perceived probability of arrest are largely affected by neighbourhood conditions and victimisation. The link between perceptions and criminal behaviour is also examined, but the empirical evidence is not in line with the basic predictions of the economic theory of crime.
Policy Studies Journal, 2004
In the late 60s, Gary Becker incorporated into his formal model of deterrence theory an explicit statement that the theory´s components-certainty and severity of punishment-are more or less influential than one another depending on an individual´s preference for risk. The certainty of punishment is more influential than the severity of punishment in the decision of whether or not to commit crime if an individual is risk acceptant; if a criminal is risk averse, then the severity of punishment is more important than the certainty of punishment. Many aggregate deterrence studies arrive at estimates that reveal varying effects of the certainty and severity components of deterrence theory, with the certainty of punishment carrying the greater, and many times the only, weight. Leaning on Becker´s extension of deterrence theory, empiricists assume that criminals have a preference for risk. Assertions that arrests and convictions are greater deterrent tools imply important worldly consequences because they indicate to governmental authorities where resources should be invested to insure the best deterrent payoff. In this paper, I question both the need to take risk into consideration in aggregate level deterrence studies and the empirical evidence that has been offered in support of attaching greater weight to the certainty of punishment. I show, first, that deterrence theory, from an applied policy standpoint, is encumbered through the explicit consideration of risk preferences. Next, I work through the algebra of the statistical formulations of deterrence models and demonstrate that the greater weight associated with certainty could well be an artifact of the model specification. Finally, I reanalyze data that appear to be consistent with the greater weight for certainty than severity argument and show that the evidence does not support that inference. Potential criminals mentally combine the three deterrence components-regardless of whether they are risk neutral, averse, or acceptant. I conclude by considering what it means to a worldly application of criminal deterrence theory to place equal weight on the certainty and the severity of punishment. In the criminal deterrence literature, three elements, combined, produce an expected cost of punishment: the probability of arrest, the probability of conviction, and the severity of punishment. Either by raising the certainty that a criminal will be punished-through the increased probability of arrest and/or the probability of conviction of those arrested-or by raising the severity of punishment through extended time served in prison, a government should be able to reduce the crime rate in its jurisdiction. So says the theory. The theoretical logic of criminal deterrence is disarmingly simple and, perhaps for that reason, persuasive. It is supposed to reduce crime by setting the expected cost of committing a crime high enough to dissuade potential criminals from choosing to commit illegal acts. In theory, analysis, and practice, however, things are not so simple. Notes: 1) Estimates are based on a log-linear model transformation of the Decker and Kohfeld (1990) model, estimated using the Pogue (1983) data: ln (C rate/1-C rate) = β 0 + β 1 Clear +β 2 Conv|Off + β 3 Time+ β 2 Nonwhite + β 3 Unemploy + µ. 2.) The values in parentheses are the standard errors of the coefficients.
Sanctions, short‐term mindsets, and delinquency: Reverse causality in a sample of high school youth
Legal and Criminological Psychology, 2020
Purpose. We question the commonly assumed view of a fixed causal ordering between self-control, delinquency, and sanctions and test the hypothesis that experiencing sanctions may reduce levels of self-control, thereby increasing the risk of future delinquent behaviour. As a subsidiary goal, we argue for a parsimonious view of selfcontrol that is limited to its key components, risk-taking, and impulsivity. Methods. We use three waves of data from the Zurich Project on the Social Development from Childhood into Adulthood (z-proso), an ongoing prospective longitudinal study of Swiss urban youth (N = 1,197), and include police contacts and school sanctions as predictors of delinquency. We test our hypothesis using path analysis and control for a series of potential confounders, including prior levels of self-control and earlier delinquency. Results. In line with our hypothesis, the results indicate that sanctioning reduces levels of self-control, net of prior levels of self-control, and earlier delinquency and that selfcontrol mediates the relation between sanctioning and subsequent delinquency. Conclusions. We conclude that the relation between self-control and crime may be birather than unidirectional with sanctions reducing levels of self-control, which in turn contributes to criminal behaviour. Implications for theory are discussed. Short-sightedness, or the lack of consideration of delayed consequences, pervades thinking about crime and criminal justice. It is reflected by several dispositions related to crime, including its most established individual-level correlate, self-control (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), and is also implied in the principal theory of punishment, deterrence. Both self-control and deterrence theory are premised on the belief that crime results from a failure to consider its costs, which tend to be delayed compared with its benefits (Nagin & Pogarsky, 2004). Whereas self-control theory views this failure as a relatively stable individual propensity, deterrence theory assumes that punishment can motivate offenders to abstain from crime. Both perspectives dictate a fixed causal ordering of This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Criminology & Criminal Justice, 2022
While much research on desistance addresses processes of change for repeat offenders during and after imprisonment, this article applies insights from desistance studies to novice offenders outside the traditional justice system. In Norway, increasing numbers of adolescent drug-law offenders have been diverted to alternative justice systems over the last decade. Based on in-depth interviews with youth enrolled in programmes to help them refrain from drug use, the article seeks to identify how the early-stage desistance process is understood by would-be desisters. Rather than ascribing the rehabilitative programmes' direct impact on their behaviour and thinking, the adolescents emphasised the importance of restoring relationships with parents and overcoming legal barriers. Accordingly, the analysis shows how concerns with personal reform were outweighed by (i) social and (ii) legal concerns. While the precedence of external concerns over personal reform may reflect the participants' age and level of criminal involvement, it also reflects a particular culture of intervention.
Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology, 2019
To examine individual perceptions of the consequences of crime, the role of criminogenic models, and whether rational choice and criminal social capital are informative of desistance during emerging adulthood. Methods: Data from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study were used to examine the relationship between different aspects of rational choice theories of desistance, criminogenic environment, and offending trajectories measured between ages 12-30, calculated using semi-parametric group-based modeling. Offending trajectories were then modeled using multinomial logistic regression. Results: Trajectory analyses identified 3 desistance trajectories and 3 non-desistance trajectories. The strongest predictors of desistance trajectories included variables that relate to rational choices that considered the consequences of crime. Conclusions: Rational choice and life course perspectives on desistance as complementary, with sources of informal social control operating in a manner that, along with other factors, helps structure an individual's consideration of, and importance placed on, the consequences of crime.