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CJE3444 - CRIME PREVENTION
Dr. E. Buchholz
Chapter 8
General Deterrence
Deterrence
 Andenaes
Deterrence is influencing by fear
Likely offenders refrain from committing criminal acts due to a fear of apprehension and
punishment
As the risk of punishment increases, the likelihood of deterrence also increases
What is Deterrence?
 Deterrence assumes rationality of the offender
 They will choose pleasure over pain (hedonism)
 For deterrence to be effective the pain levied must be equal to the pleasure obtain or
attempted.
 Two forms of deterrence:
Specific Deterrence
General Deterrence
Deterrence
 Specific Deterrence
Efforts to keep an individual offender from violating the law again in the future
Deterrence
 General Deterrence
Efforts to impact more than the individual offender
Requirements for Deterrence
 Severity
Ensuring punishments provide enough pain to offset the pleasure received from committing
the criminal act
Seeks to eliminate the positive, pleasurable outcome of the activity and replace it with
negative, unwanted pain
 Certainty
The chances of being caught and punished for one’s behavior
The absence of enforcement of a law suggests to other potential offenders that the system
either does not care or is incapable of imposing its will and the punishment
Requirements for Deterrence
 Celerity
The swiftness of the societal response
Punishment that is temporally far removed from the action will not have the same impact as a
punishment occurring soon after the action
Which of the three in your opinion is most important?
Does Deterrence Work?
 Cross-Sectional Studies, Longitudinal Studies and Panel Studies are used to determined
the effectiveness of deterrence
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 Deterrence is difficult to measure due to the fact there are outside factors that may have
led to the individual not committing crime (family, job, time constraints)
Cross-Sectional Studies
 Numerous studies depict conflicting results for severity and certainty of punishment.
 For instance, in studies of the death penalty researchers have found both increased
murder results in death penalty states vs. non-death penalty states, and decreased murder
rates.
Most of this is due to additional variables being studied or the population of the study.
Also, the focus is on “severity” to the exclusion of the other deterrent factors.
 A cross sectional study takes a snapshot of a population at a certain time, allowing
conclusions about phenomena across a wide population to be drawn.
Longitudinal Studies
 Longitudinal studies have found certainty of punishment is visible for a short time, but
after the initial prevention effort wears off, so does the deterrent effect
 Severity of punishments in association with drunk driving arrests and fatalities have
produced some positive results
Certainty of Apprehension
 Ehrlich
Found that each execution deters 7-8 homicides
Criticized for methodological technique
 Few studies exclusively looking at the severity of the death penalty fail to find a deterrent
impact
 Studies on police activty shows that intensive patrol att crime hot spots, has as significant
dettent effect on calls for service and crime/disorder.
Some studies show deterrent impact is brief and decays over time
 A longitudinal study is observational research performed over a period of years or even
decades.
Panel Studies
 Follow a number of separate units—states, counties, individuals—over a period of time
 Combination of Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional studies
 Findings mirror the previous studies.
 Most recent panel analysis claim strong support for a deterrent effect of the death penalty.
 Most studies show minimal support for certainty and severity of punishment and those
that do (in association with the death penalty) have questionable research designs.
Perceptions
Perceptions
 Ability of punishment to deter offenders rests upon assumptions regarding the knowledge
the potential violators hold about the law and the CJ system.
 A law or the actual sanction will only affect individuals who perceive risks to themselves.
 Individuals ignorant of the law cannot be expected to refrain from the prohibited behavior
just because the law exists.
 If the potential offender believes the chances of apprehension are slim and the penalty is
an acceptable alternative, the chances of deterrence are less.
Perceptions
 The general population are often unaware of the legal codes and changes in the law.
 The general public has little knowledge about penalties for offenses.
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 Offenders usually find out about sanctions only after becoming involved in the system.
 Statutory changes within a state usually go unnoticed by the populace.
Perceived Certainty
 Erickson
Increased perception of risk is related to reduced deviant behavior
Juveniles who envision higher chances of being arrested or incarcerated for a given offense
are less likely to engage in the particular offense
 Piliavin
The opportunity to commit a crime is more influential than the perception of risk or sanctions.
Problems with Deterrence
 The major issue with measuring deterrence is researchers using “perceptions” of criminal
activity as a measure.
- Was it risk or additional factors that led to a decrease of crime?
- Experiential effect- Researchers have questioned whether the perception of apprehension
deters crime or whether the actual apprehension of an individual raises the perception of
risk.
 Jensen and Stitt
 The perceived risk of apprehension is significantly related to intentions to violate the law
in the future.
 People who see little risk of apprehension are more likely to violate the law than do
others.
Perceived Severity
 Meier and Johnson
As the perceived severity of the sanction increases, the level of marijuana use decreases.
 Williams and Hawkins
The perception of stigma and social disapproval are the greatest deterrents; going to jail and
being sanctioned by the legal system are less of a deterrent than the social factors.
 Hollinger and Clark
The level of employee theft diminishes as perceptions of risk increase and the individual sees
harsher sanctions as a possible outcome
Summary
 Few studies attempt to measure all three components (severity, certainty, and celerity) at
the same time.
 There is no solid proof of a deterrent effect, due to research design & the difficulty of
measuring deterrence.
 If certainty of apprehension and punishment is the most important factor, the CJ system
and society must increase the level of risk for offenders.
Closing Remark on Deterrence
“Failure to increase the risk of apprehension (certainty) and punishment (severity) does
not mean that the crime rate will rise. Rather, it indicates that the sanctioning power of the
criminal justice system alone is not enough to keep motivated individuals from offending” (pg.
66)
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This could explain the need for more motivated crime prevention efforts.
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