Deterrence and Crime Prevention: Reconsidering the Prospect of Sanction
Abstract
Deterrence is at the heart of the preventive aspiration of criminal justice. Deterrence, whether through preventive patrol by police officers or stiff prison sentences for violent offenders, is the principal mechanism through which the central feature of criminal justice, the exercise of state authority, works – it is hoped -- to diminish offending and enhance public safety. And however well we think deterrence works, it clearly often does not work nearly as well as we would like – and often at very great cost.
... Primarily, although the concepts of prevention and deterrence are often used interchangeably, they are not synonymous. To 'prevent' is to keep something from happening, while to 'deter' is to discourage someone from doing something by instilling doubt or fear of consequences and, therefore, inhibiting or reducing the likelihood of an event occurring (Coomber et al., 2015;Glynn, 2022;Kennedy, 2009). In other words, deterrence lies at the heart of prevention (Glynn, 2022). ...
... In other words, deterrence lies at the heart of prevention (Glynn, 2022). A lot of research was done both on theory and practice of deterrence, frequently emphasizing the failure of deterrence regimes to actually deter crime, with each crime and especially the non-rational ones being evidence to this failure (Kennedy, 2009). However, after years on the periphery of crime policy, deterrence has regained a center stage. ...
... However, after years on the periphery of crime policy, deterrence has regained a center stage. In his page-turner book, Kennedy illuminates the breadth and power of deterrence as a crime prevention and crime control tool, demonstrating an encyclopedic command of deterrence literature and incorporating a huge amount of new empirical evidence (Kennedy, 2009). Thus, Kennedy argues that, beyond the declared failure, the world is actually soaked in deterrence in its utter ordinariness that oftentimes escapes our attention: "the class of people who persistently put their hands on hot stoves, cross the street without looking, and steal cars in front of police officers is very small" (Kennedy, 2009, p. 9). ...
Fight against illegal antiquities trade has predominantly taken a reactive stance. This study operates with novel quantitative and qualitative data obtained through a survey and interviews with 42 law enforcement agents from 21 source and market countries. An empirical insight on illegal antiquities trade is provided, and a comprehensive reference framework of crime deterrence strategies is created. Incidence and efficiency rates of the identified strategies conceal that a law enforcement response at the market side, strengthened through policing, criminal prosecution, reverse of the burden of proof, market control and traceability, is deemed most effective deterrence-wise leveraging certainty of being caught, severity and celerity of punishment, the key mechanisms of Deterrence theory. By contrast, the existing international and EU legislation are considered inconsistent. The findings reveal the need for critically reviewing the current situation and defining a pathway for antiquities markets from malum non prohibitum environments to at least malum prohibitum climates: shaping proactive policy approaches through updated legislation and targeted crime deterrence and prevention activities to be applied mainly at the market side.
... MN. 2.09). 81 ...
... 533 In fact, it is not the 'appearances' but the 'realities of the situation' that the ECtHR assesses for this purpose. This is a valid approach, especially considering the fact that sometimes even the Member States themselves do 529 Engel and Others v Netherlands (5100/71, 5101/71, 5102/71, 5354/72, 5370/72) 8 June 1976 ECtHR at [81]. And yet it was not really "the only way" since the applicants in this case alternatively argued that Convention guarantees were applicable under the 'civil limb' of Article 6 ECHR. ...
... 798 Luchaninova v Ukraine (16347/02) 9 June 2011 ECtHR at [56]. 799 The ECtHR, given the lack of evidence, could not verify whether the disputed hearing actually took place at such a late hour, however, the general stance of the ECtHR regarding this question could still be deduced, see Galstyan v Armenia (26986/03) 15 November 2007 ECtHR at [80] - [81]. See for a similar problem Ashughyan v Armenia (33268/03) 17 July 2008 ECtHR. ...
This thesis explores the principles of administrative punishment within the legal framework of the Council of Europe with a special emphasis on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The thesis seeks to gauge the scope of individual protection that one might expect with regard to administrative sanctions as well as to identify cases, in which such protection may be insufficient. The thesis concludes with the idea that even though the ECtHR views administrative sanctioning as an ‘organic’, multi-pronged system, there are instances, where procedural safeguards which could have been invoked at the administrative sanctioning level, remain undeveloped.
... For deterrence to work, offenders and potential offenders need to know of the risks involved in crime commission. This requires the risks and the consequences of crime commission to be advertised because if the risks are unknown, they cannot deter (Kennedy 2009). Competing against deterrence is the experiential effect. ...
... decays. Communicating the risks of offending is, therefore, vital to how deterrence works (Kennedy 2009;Paternoster et al. 1983). Advertising a property marking programme using street signs and door and window stickers is, therefore, important to how a property marking intervention works. ...
... Also, as this mechanism does not remove the opportunities for burglary that may exist in the area, other offenders can take advantage of these opportunities if a burglar in the area has been removed. Also, once an offender commits a burglary in a property marking area (or learns of others who have done so), and is not arrested the experiential effect means they reduce their perceived risk of being caught (Kennedy 2009;Minor and Harry 1982;Saltzman et al. 1982). ...
Property marking is a popular tool used by police agencies in burglary prevention programmes. 345 property marking kits were distributed to households in a treatment area in an English city. Changes in burglary in the treatment area were compared to three control areas. Crime type displacement to vehicle crime, criminal damage and violent crime, and changes in crime while controlling for geographic displacement were examined. Burglary decreased significantly by 82% in the treatment area in comparison to control areas during the first six months of the intervention. A significant diffusion of benefit effect to vehicle crime and criminal damage was also observed. The decreases, however, were short-lived with burglary levels returning to pre-intervention levels in the treatment area after 12 months.
... Focused deterrence, sometimes called "pulling levers" policing, represents an important turning point in criminology and crime prevention practice. As will be detailed in this Element, the approach builds on theoretical insights on the proper application of deterrence principles to modify the behavior of individual and groups of high-rate offenders (Kennedy, 1997(Kennedy, , 2008. It also draws upon new theoretical perspectives on the salience of police legitimacy and community engagement when implementing police-led crime control strategies (Braga, 2012;Kennedy, 2011). ...
... Focused deterrence follows an action research model that tailors the strategy to specific crime problems and builds upon local operational capacities to deliver sanctions and mobilize support to control high-rate offenders driving targeted problems (Braga, Kennedy, & Tita, 2002). A general theoretical reframing of deterrence has been developed (Kennedy, 1997(Kennedy, , 2008Kennedy, Kleiman, & Braga, 2017;Kleiman, 2009). Consistent with the problem-solving approach, three main operational variations of focused deterrence have developed: group violence intervention (GVI) has been applied to control violent behavior by gangs and other criminally active groups McGarrell et al., 2006;Papachristos & Kirk, 2015), drug market intervention (DMI) has been implemented to address violence and disorder generated by overt drug markets (Kennedy, 2009a;Kennedy & Wong, 2009;Corsaro et al., 2012), and individual offender strategies have sought to control serious violent behavior by individual chronic offenders (Papachristos, Meares, & Fagan, 2007). ...
... Focused deterrence strategies are often framed as problem-oriented exercises in which specific recurring crime problems are analyzed, and responses are highly customized to local conditions and operational capacities (Kennedy, 2008). These strategies seek to change offender behavior by understanding underlying violence-producing dynamics and conditions that sustain recurring violence problems, and implementing a blended set of law enforcement, informal social control, and social service actions. ...
This Element examines an increasingly important community crime prevention strategy - focused deterrence. This strategy seeks to change offender behavior by understanding underlying crime-producing dynamics and conditions that sustain recurring crime problems, and implementing a blended set of law enforcement, community mobilization, and social service actions. The approach builds on recent theorizing on optimizing deterrence, mobilizing informal social control, enhancing police legitimacy, and reducing crime opportunities through situational crime prevention. There are three main types of focused deterrence strategies: group violence intervention programs, drug market intervention programs, and individual offender programs. A growing number of rigorous program evaluations find focused deterrence to be an effective crime prevention strategy. However, a number of steps need to be taken to ensure focused deterrence strategies are implemented properly. These steps include creating a network of capacity through partnering agencies, conducting upfront and ongoing problem analysis, and developing accountability structures and sustainability plans.
... The second type of focused deterrence strategy is intended to reduce crime driven by street-level drug markets and is generally called a "drug market intervention" (DMI) program. DMI-focused BRAGA ET AL. | 3 of 65 deterrence strategies are used to identify street-level dealers, immediately apprehend violent drug offenders, and suspend criminal cases for nonviolent dealers (Kennedy, 2008). DMI strategies then bring together nonviolent drug dealers, their families, law enforcement and criminal justice officials, service providers, and community leaders for a meeting that communicates directly to offenders that their drug dealing has to stop, the community cares for them but rejects their conduct, services, and job opportunities are available, and renewed dealing will result in the activation of the existing case (Kennedy & Wong, 2009). ...
... Finally, some focused deterrence programs are aimed at preventing repeat offending by high-risk individuals. In general, these strategies address the most dangerous offenders with a wide range of legal tools, put offenders on formal notice that their "next offense" will bring extraordinary legal attention, and focus community "moral voices" on such offenders to set a clear standard that violence is unacceptable (Deuchar, 2013;Kennedy, 2008;Papachristos, Meares, & Fagan, 2007). ...
... Findings from recent studies reveal that when procedural justice approaches are used by the police, citizens will not only evaluate the legitimacy of the police more highly, but they will also be more likely to obey the law in the future (Paternoster, Brame, Bachman, & Sherman, 1997; but see Nagin & Telep, 2017). Advocates of focused deterrence strategies argue that targeted offenders should be BRAGA ET AL. | 5 of 65 treated with respect and dignity (Kennedy, 2008(Kennedy, , 2011, reflecting procedural justice principles. The Chicago Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN) strategy, for instance, was aimed at increasing the likelihood that the offenders would "buy-in" and comply voluntarily with the prosocial, antiviolence norms being advocated by interacting with offenders in ways that enhance procedural justice in their communication sessions (Papachristos et al., 2007). ...
... The overall idea behind focused deterrence programs is that police can increase the certainty, swiftness, and severity of punishment in a number of innovative ways, often by directly interacting with offenders and potential offenders and communicating clear incentives for compliance and clear consequences for criminal activity (see Braga & Weisburd, 2012;Kennedy, 2009). Many of these strategies employ the "pulling levers" framework popularized in Boston with Operation Ceasefire (Braga, Kennedy, Waring, & Piehl, 2001), in which gangs were notified that violence would no longer be tolerated and that, if violence did occur, every available legal lever would be pulled to bring an immediate and certain harsh response. ...
... While focused deterrence strategies narrow in on particular offenders or groups of offenders, they still fit in well with this chapter's review of place-based strategies. These strategies were successful in part because they created a credible deterrent threat (Kennedy, 2009). This was accomplished, to some extent, by narrowing the focus of the intervention to specific offenders and specific geographic areas. ...
Evidence‐based policing focuses on using the findings and conclusions drawn from rigorous research to help guide policy and practice. Based on a number of experimental and quasi‐experimental studies, there is strong support for the idea that evidence‐based policing can reduce violence. Focusing in particular on place‐based approaches, this chapter reviews what is known about the impact of various policing strategies on reducing violent crime. We review evidence on a series of innovations since the 1980s in policing that all show overall positive effects in tests examining violent crime outcomes. These include hot spots policing, directed patrol programs focused on gun violence, focused deterrence or pulling levers programs, and problem‐oriented policing. We also discuss broken windows policing, a popular strategy for which the evidence is more mixed. Overall, we find evidence that police can be most effective in reducing violence when they are place based, focused, and proactive.
... Braga, Turchan, Papachristos, & Hureau, 2019) or focused deterrence (e.g. Braga, Zimmerman, et al., 2019;Kennedy, 2012). Crimes committed in cyberspace are also concentrated in space and time and follow observable patterns. ...
... In any case, the concentration figures would probably vary. Considering all possible scenarios, it is safe to claim that the concentration of crime perpetration among a few prolific offenders is also observed for website defacements Therefore, it is possible that focused deterrence strategies that have served to reduce violent crime in physical space (Braga, Zimmerman, et al., 2019;Kennedy, 2012) can be adapted to the particularities of defacers to be effective in reducing the impact of repeats in this type of cybercrime. ...
Repeat victimization has been widely studied from the perspective of environmental criminology for several decades. During this period, criminologists have identified a set of repeat victimization premises that are observed for many property crimes; however, it is unknown whether these premises are also valid for cybercrime. In this study we employ more than 9 million Zone-H data records from 2010 to 2017 to test whether these premises apply for the cybercrime of website defacement. We show that the phenomenon of repeat victimization is also observed in cyber places where this type of cybercrime occurs. In particular, we found that repeats contributed little to crime rates, that repeats occurred even several years after the original incident, that they were committed disproportionately by prolific offenders, and that few offenders returned to victimize previous targets. The results suggest that some traditional premises of repeat victimization may also be valid for understanding cybercrime events such as website defacement, implying that environmental criminology theories also constitute a useful framework for cybercrime analysis. The implications of these results in terms of criminological theory, cybercrime prevention and the limitations derived from the use of Zone-H data are discussed.
... At the outset, Detroit Ceasefire was explicitly modeled on the focused deterrence initiative originally developed in Boston Ceasefire (Braga et al., 2001). The Detroit implementation team received training and technical assistance from personnel at the National Network for Safe Communities led by David Kennedy, who was heavily involved in Boston Ceasefire (Kennedy, 2009). The call-in meetings focused on individuals identified as being actively involved in gangs and street groups involved in serious violence. ...
... The structure of the meetings followed that of meetings conducted in Chicago, Cincinnati, and New Orleans, and described in detail in studies of those initiatives (Corsaro & Engel, 2015;Engel, Tillyer, & Corsaro, 2013;Papachristos & Kirk, 2015). The theoretical foundations behind the call-in message draw upon focused deterrence (Kennedy, 2009). That is, the message combines the principle of specific deterrence with a direct delivery to people believed to be at high risk for violence. ...
Focused on deterrence popular model to address community-level violence, however little research has examined the individual-level effect of deterrent messaging on subsequent offending. To answer this question, we utilize data on 254 gang- and group-involved probationers and parolees who attended offender “call-in” meetings as part of the Detroit Ceasefire. We employ inverse-probability weighting to construct a counterfactual comparison group from a sample of gang-involved young adults who were not subject to the Ceasefire call-in. We then use a Cox regression to estimate time to re-arrest. We find that individuals who were delivered a deterrent message at a call-in meeting had a longer time to re-arrest compared to a weighted comparison group for up to 3 years following the meeting.
... Thus, the threat of punishment can deter potential violations if the anticipated consequences surpass the advantages of criminal activity (Paternoster, 2010). This rational framework has been extensively studied, with researchers examining the deterrence effect of punitive actions in preventing unethical and illegal behavior (Pratt et al., 2008;Kennedy, 2008;Piquero et al., 2011;Auriol & Søreide, 2017). ...
The cross-debarment system established by multilateral development banks (MDBs) plays an instrumental role in combating corruption by deterring misconduct among contractors. Yet, the extent of its deterrent effect remains underexplored. This study aims to bridge the existing literature gap by employing quantitative methods to assess the efficacy of the cross-debarment system and its impact on curbing corruption. It explores the correlation between specific attributes derived from the deterrence theory and the outcomes of enforcement actions, particularly examining the likelihood of debarment for firms versus individuals. The findings reveal significant correlations between the outcome variable and the three explanatory variables. Prohibited practice and the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) are found to have a substantial impact, whereas the length of cross-debarment does not exhibit significant explanatory power. The odds of debarment indicate that firms involved in fraudulent activities are less likely to be cross-debarred compared to those involved in corrupt practices, with the reverse being true for individuals. A slight increase in debarment likelihood with higher CPI scores suggests that firms in less corrupt jurisdictions are more closely scrutinized for cross-debarment enforcement. Additionally, the study categorizes entities to explore variations in cross-debarment likelihood based on the nature of violations and perceived corruption levels in jurisdictions. This paper also offers recommendations aimed at further enhancing the capacity of the cross-debarment system to deter corruption in MDB operations.
... En segundo lugar, Cornish y Clarke (1986) ampliaron la teoría de la disuasión incorporando elementos de la perspectiva de la elección racional en un esfuerzo por parcelar la disuasión en una teoría de la delincuencia basada en la situación que se centra en los riesgos y las recompensas asociadas a delitos específicos en lugares específicos. [...] Una tercera extensión implicó un enfoque particular en los beneficios asociados con la delincuencia (Katz, 1988). Es importante destacar que la noción de beneficios en la teoría de Katz era más que instrumental, en la medida en que los delincuentes también pueden obtener beneficios emocionales/mentales que son intangibles y quizás no estén relacionados con la capacidad de disuasión. ...
SPANISH: Una de las justificaciones más comunes sobre la pena es que la
misma sirve para prevenir delitos y lo haría desde su misma fase
de enunciación que consistiría en la comunicación de una
amenaza legal. Esta asunción está tan interiorizada en la
sociedad y en el legislador que una forma habitual de justificar
la criminalización de nuevas conductas y aumentar las penas es
apelar a la necesidad de aumentar los costes del delito para que
los potenciales infractores se retraigan de cometer delitos, algo
que supuestamente sucedería si se modifica el Código Penal en
tal sentido. Sin embargo, se ha tendido a aceptar que la pena
cumpliría tal función sin preocuparse ni el legislador ni la
dogmática de atender a la multitud de estudios procedentes de
las ciencias sociales que ayudarían a determinar qué
mecanismos están detrás de la prevención que puede producir
la enunciación del castigo. En el presente trabajo se ha tenido,
por tanto, un doble objetivo de investigación: por un lado, poner
a prueba la hipótesis que se encuentra detrás de la estrategia
legislativa consistente en aumentar las penas y los ámbitos de
criminalización esperando que ello produzca en los potenciales
infractores una necesidad de retraerse de realizar determinadas
conductas; y, por otro, poner de manifiesto otra serie de factores
que pueden estar relacionados con la prevención producida por
la enunciación de la norma penal y que van más allá de la mera
intimidación, relacionados con la comunicación del modelo de
conducta social y la legitimidad sustantiva de las normas. La
consecución de ambos objetivos se ha llevado a cabo por dos
vías: por un lado, mediante una revisión bibliográfica de la
literatura sobre la teoría de la disuasión general y de otros
factores relacionados con el cumplimiento como son la
influencia social y la legitimidad sustantiva de la norma; por
otro, con la realización de seis estudios empíricos propios en los
que se han puesto a prueba las diferentes hipótesis de los
principales enfoques de cumplimiento normativo. Entre los
principales resultados se encuentran que las variables de la
disuasión no suelen formar parte de los elementos que los
XVIII
sujetos de las muestras toman en consideración para la decisión
de cumplir. Este hallazgo iría en la línea de lo establecido en la
literatura sobre la disuasión que viene a sostener que para que
la misma pueda desplegar sus efectos deben de darse toda una
serie de requisitos que, normalmente, no se cumplen. En
cambio, sí tienen mucha más importancia para dicho
cumplimiento variables relacionadas con la transmisión del
modelo de conducta normativo, la desaprobación moral social,
o el juicio moral o sistema de valores del individuo. En este
mismo sentido, una ausencia de cualidades de la norma como la
legitimidad percibida de la misma puede producir efectos
perversos que derivarían en el incumplimiento y la erosión de
la legitimidad de la norma y la autoridad, confirmando la
necesidad de que la norma penal revista de legitimidad para que
la misma genere cumplimiento voluntario. Finalmente, se
establecen algunas conclusiones para la criminología, el
Derecho penal y la política criminal derivadas de la
investigación y que contribuirían a mejorar, por un lado, el
debate sobre los efectos de la sanción penal y, por otro, la parte
de la política criminal que corresponde a la regulación y sanción
de determinadas conductas socialmente disvaliosas // ENGLISH: One of the most common rationales for punishment is that it is
useful to prevent crime, and it would do so from its very phase
of enunciation, which would consist of the communication of a
legal threat. This assumption is so internalized in society and in
the legislator that a common way of justifying the
criminalization of new behaviors and increasing penalties is to
appeal to the need to increase the costs of crime so that potential
offenders are deterred from committing crimes, something that
would supposedly happen if the Penal Code were modified in
this sense. However, there has been a tendency to accept that
punishment would fulfil such a function without the legislator
or the legal academic community considering the multitude of
studies from the social sciences that would help to determine
what mechanisms are behind the prevention that can be
produced by the enunciation of punishment. The present thesis
has therefore had a double research objective: on the one hand,
to test the hypothesis behind the legislative strategy of
increasing penalties and areas of criminalization in the hope that
this will produce in potential offenders a need to refrain from
carrying out certain behaviors; and, on the other, to highlight
another series of factors that may be related to the prevention
produced by the enunciation of the criminal norm and which go
beyond mere intimidation, related to the communication of the
model of social behavior and the substantive legitimacy of the
norms. Both objectives have been pursued in two ways: on the
one hand, through a literature review of the literature on general
deterrence theory and other factors related to compliance such
as social influence and substantive legitimacy of the norm; on
the other hand, by conducting six empirical studies of our own
in which the different hypotheses of the main compliance
approaches have been tested. Among the main results are that
deterrence variables do not tend to be part of the elements that
subjects in the samples take into consideration in their decision
to comply. This finding would be in line with what is established
in the literature on deterrence, which argues that for deterrence
XX
to have an effect, a series of requirements must be met that are
not normally fulfilled. In contrast, variables related to the
communication of the normative model of behavior, social
moral disapproval, or the moral judgement or value system of
the individual are much more important for such compliance. In
this same sense, an absence of qualities of the norm such as its
perceived legitimacy can produce perverse effects that would
lead to non-compliance and the erosion of the legitimacy of the
norm and authority, confirming the need for the criminal norm
to have legitimacy for it to generate voluntary compliance.
Finally, some conclusions are drawn for criminology, criminal
law and crime policy arising from the research, which would
contribute to improving, on the one hand, the debate on the
effects of criminal punishment and, on the other, the part of
crime policy that relates to the regulation and punishment of
certain socially disvaluable conducts
... Algunos estudios evidencian que políticas basadas en la certeza del castigo son más efectivas que las políticas de mano dura (Durlauf y Nagin, 2011). 86 Otros, argumentan que sanciones menores pueden disuadir más efectivamente que las sanciones muy severas (Kennedy, 2009). ...
Este capítulo desarrollado en la modalidad de artículo de revisión descriptiva,
analiza la pregunta ¿Cómo se entiende la violencia de pareja, duelo, responsabilidad
subjetiva y la permanencia de mujeres en relaciones de pareja violenta según la
literatura? Propuesta que se desarrolló Desde el Grupo de Investigación PSIEDU de
la Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia.
Como característica relevante, se encuentra que en el departamento del Cauca no
se cuentan con muchos estudios al respecto, por lo que, este artículo de revisión
puede aportar al establecimiento de nuevos lineamientos en la política pública, como
el fortalecimiento de capacidades institucionales y sociales para la construcción de
paz. Por lo anterior, se desarrollan cuatro ejes temáticos: 1) Ciclos en la violencia de
pareja, Protagonismo en la violencia, 2) Factores de riesgo y Repercusiones, 3)
Permanencia y Responsabilidad 4) Duelo: recuperar o perder.
... The networked nature of criminal offending also implies that there will be contagion, such that movements among those in the upper tail of the offending distribution will have knock-on effects and disrupt the equilibrium between the supply of crime consequences and the probability of criminal behavior. These knock-on effects can involve spreading a sense that consequences are no longer as certain or severe for illegal behaviors, increasing retaliations among factions of criminals that have disputes, and generating a general sense in a community that high-rate offenders are not being held accountable and that self-protection is essential (Braga & Kennedy, 2021;Kennedy, 2012). Simply put, the "power few" of criminals (Sherman, 20072007), whether left undeterred or subjected to strong social controls, will have a remarkably strong impact on the overall crime rate of serious offenses. ...
Objective
Joan McCord was an experimental criminologist who advocated for evaluating social programs for efficacy, benefits, and potential harms to guide crime prevention policy. This paper argues that criminal justice reform should be guided by evidence for effective social programs that guard against unintended harms. Programs that focus on social control are consistent with basic facts of crime and guard against the tail risk of surges in serious crime and violence. This paper discusses the evidence from evaluations of social programs which are based on principals of social control in families, schools, neighborhoods, and the criminal justice system.
Methods
This paper draws upon the evaluations of social programs that have been published based on at least one high-quality experiment or two rigorous quasi-experiments, that can be scaled to entire populations, and are sustainable over time.
Results
A review of experimental and quasi-experimental evidence found that social programs focused on increasing social control (formal or informal) in families, schools, communities, and by the criminal justice system are effective at preventing serious crime. Some of the social programs with rigorous evidence of preventing crime could be scaled to entire populations for prolonged durations with adequate planning and implementation models.
Conclusion
Many contemporary criminal justice reforms have little evidence of efficacy, and run the risk of generating unintended adverse outcomes related to the spread of serious crime and violence. Existing evidence suggests that social programs that focus on social control can act as buffers against the tail risk of serious crime. The social programs with evidence of preventing crime should be expanded, monitored for fidelity in implementation, and continuously evaluated to improve their efficacy and sustainability as effective safeguards against the rise in serious crime and violence.
... Deterrence theory has guided most existing criminal justice practices and policies in the US (Kennedy 2012). Bentham (1789) and Beccaria (1764) conceptualized deterrence theory in the eighteenth century. ...
Many leading criminological theories problematically focus on individuals and communities as criminal rather than implicating structures and systems that perpetuate harm. We offer a nine-step protocol to invert and redefine three predominant deficits-based criminological theories. Our inversion method produced punitive provocation theory, critical environmental adaptation theory, and socio-structural induction theory, as theoretical inversions of deterrence, social disorganization, and self-control theory. We suggest different measurement options for each new inverted theory, including a focus on the structural antecedents of crime such as racial/ethnic discrimination, exclusion, surveillance practices, and divestment from communities. To ameliorate under-theorizing and create a more equitable and less harmful society, we urge theorists, researchers, and practitioners to adopt a more inclusive, critical, and reflexive approach to understanding human behavior.
... Detroit implemented a group-based violence prevention strategy built upon the focused deterrence model(Braga et al., 2001;Kennedy, 2009) that demonstrated an impact on community levels of violence and reduced re-offending among high-risk probationers and parolees.Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
Objectives
This study examines the effect Project Green Light Detroit (PGLD), an integrated CCTV program, on crime at commercial and non-commercial city parcels in Detroit, MI.
Methods
A quasi-experimental design was used by implementing a difference-in-differences model with adjustments made for variation in treatment timing and treatment heterogeneity.
Results
Findings from the study indicate that PGLD increased reporting of property crimes at some participating locations but did not significantly impact violent or disorder crimes. Most of the impact of PGLD was attributable to locations that joined the program early in its implementation.
Conclusions
Studies examining treatment effects that are implemented over time should adjust for variation in treatment timing and treatment heterogeneity. Several new statistical methods exist that can implement these in a variety of software packages.
... Police, prosecutors, and other criminal justice officials, social service providers, and community members deliver a two-pronged message to high-risk offendervictims: Continued offending will bring swift and certain punishment. If you want out of this life, here are services and supports that can help Kennedy, 2008). Victimization is not neglected and offending is not excused in this approach to crime reduction. ...
Studies find mixed results regarding the effects of race on criminal justice case processing, likely because they rarely account for the race of both the victim and offender, and few consider how prosecutorial case screening may influence later criminal justice stages. This study examines the impact of victim and defendant race on case screening, bail, and sentencing outcomes for 1,131 firearm offenses that occurred between 2015 and 2018 in St. Louis, MO. Regressions modeling the relationships between each outcome and victim and defendant race (estimated separately and as defendant-victim racial dyads) find that cases involving Black victims, alone and in combination with Black defendants, are more likely than others to be dismissed by prosecutors during case screening, whereas legally relevant factors affect bail and sentencing outcomes. The results suggest that disregarding initial gatekeeping stages of criminal justice case processing may lead to the mistaken conclusion that racial disparities do not exist.
... Using warning banners, we seek to remove any excuses such users might have to carry out DDoS attacks by alerting their consciences at a critical time: when they are expressing interest in DDoS attacks or are even about to execute them. In the spirit of focused deterrence (Kennedy, 2012), the warning banners and their linked landing pages serve the triple purpose of informing the most inexperienced and unaware users that DDoS attacks are illegal, showing the legal consequences of carrying them out, and presenting prosocial alternatives for developing IT skills. Contrary to police tradition, our warnings appeal not only to the sanction associated with the illegality of conduct (deterrent), but also to other factors such as peer influence (social), curiosity (informative), and fairness (reorienting). ...
Objective
Aiming to reduce distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks by alerting the consciences of Internet users, this paper evaluates the effectiveness of four warning banners displayed as online ads (deterrent—control, social, informative, and reorienting) and the contents of their two linked landing pages.
Methods
We implement a 4 × 2 quasi-experimental design on a self-selected sample of Internet users to measure the engagement generated by the ads and the pages. Engagement is measured on the ads as the ratio of clicks to impressions and on the pages as percentage of page scrolled, average session duration, video interaction rate, and URLs click rate.
Results
Social ads generate significantly more engagement than the rest with low to medium effect sizes. Data reveal no differences in engagement between both landing page designs.
Conclusions
Social messages may be a better alternative for engaging with potential cyber offenders than the traditional deterrent messages.
... Enforcement actions entailed saturation patrols in the target area and intensive surveillance of FD targets and their gang-involved associates. As Kennedy (2009) suggests, these geographically focused efforts were designed to not only alter the choices of repeat gang-involved shooters but also change perceptions among the community residents where the shootings were happening. ...
The study evaluates a geographically based focused deterrence (FD) intervention, extending knowledge about FD impact beyond crime data to also examine residents’ lived experiences with gangs and gun violence via a two-wave household survey. We employ a quasi-experimental design and utilize time-series analyses, coefficient difference tests, and mixed-effects ordinal logistic regression. The results show a significant reduction in shots fired incidents in the target area relative to comparison areas. Shots fired calls for service trended downward citywide, but the magnitude was doubled in the target area. Survey data showed substantive declines in the target area on all six gang and gun violence outcomes, significantly exceeding changes experienced in comparison areas. We conclude that focusing geographically as well as on repeat offenders is an effective FD approach, and evaluating community surveys provides an improved understanding of the community impact.
... These strategies seek to change offender behaviour by understanding the underlying violenceproducing dynamics and conditions that sustain recurring violence problems, and by implementing a blended set of law enforcement, community mobilization and social service actions (Kennedy et al. 1996;Braga et al. 2001). Focused deterrence strategies are targeted on specific behaviours by a small number of chronic offenders who are highly vulnerable to criminal justice sanctions (Kennedy 2008). The approach directly confronts offenders, informs them that continued offending will not be tolerated and also notifies these groups how the system will respond to violations of these new behaviour standards. ...
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... Deterrence theory has guided most existing criminal justice practices and policies in the US (Kennedy 2012). Bentham (1789) and Beccaria (1764) conceptualized deterrence theory in the eighteenth century. ...
p>We offer a method to invert and redefine three predominant criminological theories from deficit-based to strength-based theories of crime. Using a nine-step protocol, we devised procedures on how to perform theoretical inversions, which include critically assessing the original framework of an identified theory, assuming an opposite frame, listing the original propositions, and applying an opposing frame to revise the original theory’s proposition. Our inversion method produced punitive provocation theory, critical environmental adaptation theory, and socio-structural induction theory, as theoretical inversions of deterrence, social disorganization, and self-control theories. We suggest different measurement options for these new inverted theories, including a focus on the structural antecedents of crime such as racial/ethnic discrimination, exclusion, surveillance practices, and divestment from communities. To ameliorate under-theorizing and create a more equitable and less harmful society, we urge theorists, researchers, and practitioners to adopt a more inclusive, critical, and reflexive approach to understanding human behavior.</p
... 'Deterrence' has a prominent position in discussions of social control, as it holds out the promise of prevention and reduction. Criminological formulations of deterrence, contrasted with those maintained in the discipline of International Relations, differentiate between specific and general deterrence (Kennedy, 2009). Specific deterrence aims at dissuading perpetrators from repeating their own crimes in the future, whereas general deterrence is more concerned with discouraging others from engaging in similar behaviours. ...
Informed by two case studies of de-platforming interventions performed by Facebook against two high profile conspiracy theorists who had been messaging about Covid-19, this article investigates how de-platforming functions as an instrument of social control, illuminating the intended and unintended effects it induces. To help interpret the patterns in the data, two novel conceptual innovations are introduced. The concept of ‘minion accounts’ captures how following a de-platforming intervention, a series of secondary accounts are set up to continue the mission. Such accounts are part of a wider retinue of ‘re-platforming’ behaviours. Overall, the empirical evidence reviewed suggests that whilst de-platforming can constrain transmission of conspiratorial disinformation, it does not eradicate it.
... These principles are also closely linked to deterrence theory, which emphasises that individuals are profit maximisers who consider the benefits of criminal activity against the perceived costs (such as risks, losses, threats, and efforts) involved. Deterrence theory asserts that people are discouraged from committing crimes if they believe there is certainty in the likelihood of being caught, and that punishment will be swift and severe (Kennedy 2009;Nagin 1998;Paternoster et al. 1983;Sherman 1993). In settings where the risks of being caught and prosecuted are low, and where individuals perceive the rewards from criminal activity to be beneficial, more individuals are likely to engage in criminality (Piquero and Rengert 1999;Wright et al. 2004). ...
Research that has examined the high levels of crime experienced in Latin American settings has suggested that macrostructural variables (such as social inequality), and factors associated with development and institutional capacity, offer explanations for these high crime levels. Although useful, these studies have yet to quantify how these explanations translate to the dynamics of offending activities. In the current study, we examine a key component related to offending dynamics: the size of the offender population. Using two capture-recapture techniques and a bootstrap simulation, estimates were generated of the sizes of the offender populations for three comparable cities in Brazil, Mexico, and England. Each of the techniques generated similar estimates for the offender population size for each city, but with these estimates varying substantially between the cities. This included the estimated offender population size for the Brazilian city being twenty-five times greater than that for the English city. Risk of arrest values were also generated, with these calculated to be substantially lower for the Brazilian and Mexican cities than for the English city. The results provide a quantification of criminal behavior that offers a potential new insight into the high levels of crime that are experienced in Latin American settings.
... This revival was not associated with any change in the evidence we have on their effectiveness (Klein, 2011), but more likely from the realization on the part of police officers that they have lost their ability to credibly convince communities they have harassed for decades that they care about reducing violence. For the sake of effective deterrence, law enforcement reluctantly conceded that they needed to find messengers that would be more effective (Kennedy, 2009). There are many examples in the literature where rifts between gang intervention workers and police officers have played an important role in sinking large comprehensive initiatives (Spergel et al., 2006). ...
In this editorial, we want to highlight areas where we, as gang scholars, need to be better. We believe that many of us, unwittingly or not, have been part of the problem. As a community of scholars, we need to recognize the power we have in guiding perceptions of a phenomena and reactions to it. We argue that most of our past failures have been to inadequately use this power or even failing to recognize that we have it. Through our silence and tacit endorsement of the status quo, we have allowed the criminal justice system and its actor to take ownership of the concept of the gang and let them – along with the media – proliferate ideas and myths we know are wrong. We watched – and sometimes assisted – as they used the mythical idea of the gang to justify policies and practices that have contributed to uphold White supremacy and destroyed trust in institutions among communities of color.
... Este enfoque incluye medidas integrales para reducir las vulnerabilidades de los individuos en riesgo, y así, evitar que se vuelvan parte de las redes de tráfico de drogas. Por ejemplo, acompañamiento psicosocial, cursos de emprendimiento y programas de fortalecimiento comunitario ( sanciones menores pueden disuadir más efectivamente que las sanciones muy severas (Kennedy, 2009). Otros argumentan que políticas basadas en la certeza del castigo son más efectivas que las políticas de mano dura (Durlauf & Nagin, 2011); es de recordar que esta idea de que la certeza del castigo es más eficiente que las penas muy altas viene desde Beccaria (1994). ...
Entre 1991 y 2018 en Colombia, la tasa de mujeres en prisión por 100.000 habitantes mujeres aumentó más de tres veces, pasando de 9.9 en 1991 a 31.5 en junio de 2018. El número de mujeres privadas de la libertad en centros penitenciarios del Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario (INPEC) era de 1.500 en 1991 y alcanzó la cifra de 7.944 en junio de 2018. Este incremento fue del 429%, mientras que el número de hombres internos aumentó en un 300% en el mismo período, es decir, el aumento en el número de mujeres privadas de la libertad ha sido más acelerado. En junio de 2018, 43% de las mujeres privadas de la libertad en Colombia se encontraban en detención preventiva. Con el fin de entender las diferencias derivadas del género y los impactos diferenciados de la prisión en las mujeres, es importante tener más conocimiento sobre las historias, perfiles y necesidades de la población penitenciaria de mujeres en Colombia.
... On another level this relates to the interaction and specific behaviours of people within the situational environment where crime may occur. In these situations, the commission of crime is the construct of a combination of factors that are influenced by the routine activities of people that place them in these environments (Cohen and Felson, 1979), the unequal spatial distribution of opportunities to commit crime (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1993), an offender's assessment of the risks, efforts, provocations and rewards for committing a crime (Cornish and Clarke, 1986;Kennedy, 2009), and their proximity to home and areas of familiarity (Rossmo, 2000). The background norms of social disorganisation and collective efficacy, and the aggregation of these situational behaviours helps to provide a micro-level explanation of why crime concentrates in places. ...
Despite numerous attempts to decrease homicides in the Latin American region, high homicide levels have persisted. Examining four cities in Rio de Janeiro, the research reveals the intense geographic concentration of homicides in each city, but illustrates differences in the extent of homicide concentration when using a variety of crime concentration measures. Single events involving multiple homicides and a homicide near repeat pattern are observed, with almost all these incidents taking place in areas of homicide concentration. The findings suggest that programmes targeted to areas of homicide concentration, including interventions that suppress the likelihood of future incidents, could decrease homicides.
... One of the main methods used to reduce wildlife crime is deterrence through law enforcement action. However, prior research suggests that enforcement plays a negligible role in deterring wildlife criminals due to their typically temporary focus (Kennedy, 2009;Pratt & Cullen, 2005). In addition, locals frame the severity of crimes based on the other ones being committed, such as crimes against humans or property, which are typically considered more significant. ...
Much effort has been dedicated to fighting wildlife crime with modest results. This paper focuses on marine wildlife crime, which suffers from a certain level of neglect due to terrestrial bias (a predominant focus on land animals). Despite legislative and enforcement efforts, there has been little integration of marketing techniques to curtail marine wildlife crime. For these reasons, we set out to study current issues surrounding marine wildlife crime by conducting interviews with three experts in areas of marine education, research, and legislation. The interviews provide an overview of the threats to marine wildlife, aid in the development of a classification of marine wildlife crime, and provide strategies as to what marketing actions may be useful to reduce it. K E Y W O R D S crime prevention and control, depth interviews, marine wildlife, social marketing
... Society has long viewed incarceration as the simplest and most effective solution to the problems of drug addiction in the US. As noted by David Kennedy (2012), society has historically considered incarceration to have three benefits: first, the punishment of offenders for their actions; second, tools for incapacitating offenders, making them harmless by reducing their contact with society; and third, deterrence against the offender's potential inclination for crime in the future. ...
Social pressures, disruptive or upsetting life experiences, and the
inability of parents to pursue protective strategies are the triggers
of substance dependence by young people. Adolescence is the transitional stage of puberty to adulthood; a critical period of growth, where issues of this sort frequently occur. This is the period at which
mental, physical, cognitive, and social change happens concurrently,
along with interrelated factors. Analysis of the subject of substance
misuse among youths starts with an overview of the problem of opioid
addiction among adolescents in the sense of applicable criminology
hypotheses. Discussions will be conducted on the strategies the US
is pursuing to address the issue. Finally, awareness of the preventive
measures that may be implemented rather than intervening only once
the misuse has started.
Keywords: Adolescence; Criminal Justice System (CJS); General Strain Theory (GST); Prevention and Deterrence; Social Control Theory (SCT); Socialisation Models; Substance Abuse.
... Society has long viewed incarceration as the simplest and most effective solution to the problems of drug addiction in the US. As noted by David Kennedy (2012), society has historically considered incarceration to have three benefits: first, the punishment of offenders for their actions; second, tools for incapacitating offenders, making them harmless by reducing their contact with society; and third, deterrence against the offender's potential inclination for crime in the future. ...
... In the late 1990s, the BPD garnered national attention for its groundbreaking problem-oriented policing initiative, Operation Ceasefire, and received international acclaim for partnerships with interagency law enforcement officers, crime analysts, and youth service providers as well as an "extraordinary police-community relationship spearheaded by the Ten Point Coalition of activist black clergy" (Winship et al. 2008, p. 1). Thereafter, the Boston strategy for youth violence prevention, nominally dubbed "the Boston Miracle" devolved into a spectrum of evidence-based, faith-based, and public health-inspired law enforcement models, the most lauded of which being David Kennedy's theory of focused deterrence (Kennedy 2009;D. Cook, unpublished results). ...
This review synthesizes the historical literature on the criminalization and incarceration of black Americans for an interdisciplinary audience. Drawing on key insights from new histories in the field of American carceral studies, we trace the multifaceted ways in which policymakers and officials at all levels of government have used criminal law, policing, and imprisonment as proxies for exerting social control in predominantly black communities from the colonial era to the present. By underscoring this antiblack punitive tradition in America as central to the development of crime-control strategies and mass incarceration, our review lends vital historical context to ongoing discussions, research, and experimentation within criminology and other fields concerned about the long-standing implications of institutional racism, violence, and inequity entrenched in the administration of criminal justice in the United States from the top down and the ground up.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 4 is January 13, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
... However, in more recent times, crime prevention has come to occupy a central place in strategic discussions and in future visions of policing (Blevins, 2019;Braga & Weisburd, 2010: Tilley, 2003. As a theoretical field of study, crime prevention is regarded as being a sub field of community and neighbourhood policing (Moore, 2008), the theories of which, have been examined by a number of researchers (see Albrecht & Das, 2011;Blevins, 2019;Evans, 2011;Gilling, D, 2013;Kennedy, 2012;Knutsson & Tilley, 2009;Rogers, 2003;Tilley, 2009;Wood & Gannon, 2013). ...
In 2009, the New Zealand Police implemented a comprehensive program called Policing Excellence, which by 2011 became Prevention First. This strategy was designed to place victims of crime and the prevention of crime at the foreground of their service delivery, with view that in the longer-term crime would decrease. This article reviews the influence of the strategy on crime in New Zealand for the period 2009 to 2018 and finds that although the strategy has initially successful, in later years the strategy has not been successful. The review also finds that the effectiveness of the New Zealand Police has decreased significantly during this period and argues for a more balanced strategy that includes an improved form of response to increase public satisfaction with the organization’s service delivery.
... Although prosecution is important -not least symbolically -it comes too late when harm is already done, has limited deterrent effect and makes little overall dent in crime. 178 Moreover, CSA is clearly not something for the police alone to tackle: other parties (e.g. health, social care, education, charities, community groups, families) have vital roles to play and their contributions must be encouraged. ...
‘Muslim grooming gangs’ have become a defining feature of media, political and public debate around child sexual exploitation in the UK. The dominant narrative that has emerged to explain a series of horrific cases is misleading, sensationalist and has in itself promoted a number of harms. This article examines how racist framings of ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ exist not only in extremist, far-right fringes but in mainstream, liberal discourses too. The involvement of supposedly feminist and liberal actors and the promotion of pseudoscientific ‘research’ have lent a veneer of legitimacy to essentialist, Orientalist stereotypes of Muslim men, the demonisation of whole communities and demands for collective responsibility. These developments are situated in the broader socio-political context, including the far Right’s weaponisation of women’s rights, the ‘Islamophobia industry’ and a long history of racialising crime. We propose alternative ways of understanding and responding to child sexual exploitation/abuse. We contend that genuinely anti-racist feminist approaches can help in centring victims/survivors and their needs and in tackling serious sexual violence without demonising entire communities.
... Punishments should be directly related to the crime committed, such that more severe crimes warrant harsher punishments (Kennedy, 2012). States have created sentencing guidelines to minimize racial/ethnic disparities, yet racial/ethnic minorities are still being sentenced above the statutory guideline recommendations, which are based on the defendant's offense and criminal history, and are less likely than Caucasians to be given a sentence below guideline recommendations (Yang, 2013). ...
Objective: This study examined whether race/ethnicity and gender predicted sentencing to anger management therapy as a probation condition. Hypotheses: We predicted judges would be more likely to assign African Americans and Hispanics, and males to anger management than Caucasians and women, respectively. We hypothesized demographic variables would predict assignment to anger management beyond legal and nondefendant extralegal variables. Method: Data for this study are administrative and originate from an adult probation department in southern Texas. The sample (N = 4,001; 72.3% male) was 53.4% Caucasian, 28.6% African American, 16.7% Hispanic, 0.9% other, and 0.4% unknown and included individuals who had committed violent (14.2%) and nonviolent (85.8%) offenses. Results: Data analyses consisted of binary logistic regression, with anger management placement as the dependent variable, and offense, judge, county, race/ethnicity, and gender as the independent variables. The final model emerged as statistically significant, χ²(16) = 552.76, p < .001, Nagelkerke’s R² = .32. Specifically, the odds of receiving anger management were 1.71 times higher for African Americans than Caucasians, and 1.68 times higher for men than women. Exploratory analyses examining a Race/Ethnicity × Gender interaction revealed the odds of receiving anger management was significantly lower for Caucasian women than all other racial/ethnic by gender groups. Conclusion: Results suggest being part of a racial/ethnic minority group or male may disproportionately increase the odds of being required to comply with extra time and fiscal requirements associated with anger management as compared to one’s racial/ethnic and gender counterparts who have committed similar crimes.
... This is because the effectiveness of such programs is largely dependent on public perceptions of police legitimacy. This is why advocates of focused deterrence strategies argue that targeted offenders should be treated in such a way as to reflect the pillars of procedural justice (e.g., Kennedy 2008). That is, they should be treated fairly and impartially, given an opportunity for their voices to be heard, and to have decisions be explained to them in a transparent manner. ...
Recently, several highly publicized and troubling police-citizen encounters around the United States have led many to question not only police tactics, but also, more broadly, police legitimacy. These events, among others, led President Obama to create a Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Part of its focus was on fostering legitimacy through procedurally just policing practices. In fact, one of its recommendations to police departments to strengthen their policing practices through the principles of procedural justice – and thereby increasing their external legitimacy – is to promote legitimacy internally by applying those same procedural justice principles within the organization. Part of the reasoning behind this thinking is that officers will be more likely to treat citizens in procedurally just ways if they themselves are treated in procedurally just ways within their organization’s decision-making processes. To test this assertion, survey data are analyzed from 113 officers from the Rockford (IL) Police Department. Multivariate regression results suggest that officers, who perceive fair treatment in their own organization, are more likely to indicate that they employ the same fairness when interacting with citizens. Specific findings, study limitations, and policy implications are discussed.
... Iklim sosial mampu mencegah individu untuk melakukan tindak kejahatan bila hubungan antar individu maupun lembagalembaga sosial yang ada berlangsung dengan baik (Hirschi, 2011). Dalam kajian kejahatan, iklim sosial dapat difokuskan pada parameter fear of crime (kecemasan terhadap kejahatan), social bond (rasa kebersamaan masyarakat), dan pengendalian sosial kejahatan (Kennedy, 2012). Sementara itu, kondisi ekonomi diartikan sebagai posisi individu maupun kelompok yang berkaitan dengan pemenuhan kebutuhan dan kepemilikan sejumlah objek yang dianggap berharga, sehingga terbagi atas rendah, sedang, serta tinggi (Koentjaraningrat, 2014). ...
Crime is an unplanned change due to the process of urban development. The geographical approach is able to analyze spatial interactions of criminogenic factors into crime phenomenon. This study aims to explain the spatial interaction between socio-economic conditions and crime risk in Bandung City. The crime risk is obtained through Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) method based on The Annual Crime Data from Bandung Police Department, whereas the socio-economic condition data is revealed from interview and questioner with 176 respondents who determined by multistage random sampling in 37 hamlets. Variable interactions are analysed based on Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) with Gaussian Distance Function type of cross validation as optimum weight. The results show the socio-economic conditions has a positive and significant effect on crime risk. This model shows that the independent variable acts as a crime attractor. Partially its known that economic conditions have a stronger interaction with crime risk than the social climate. The strongest interaction between variables are concentrated in the southern of Kebon Pisang Urban Village, precisely in the area passed by arterial roads at southern of Sumur Bandung. Crime prevention efforts are conducted using environmental interventions by the formal security personnels and strengthening the social climate of the community.
... Aside from efforts to reduce opportunities for crime, reducing the motivation of the young men in committing the bus robberies also needs attention. As a start, the police can identify the repeat offenders in the system and employ focused deterrence strategies (Kennedy, 2012). ...
This study examines the spatial patterns and other situational determinants leading to the high number of bus robberies in Belo Horizonte. Main research questions include patterns of robberies, spatial concentration, locations prone to robberies, and environmental characteristics therein. This study also provides a variety of safety measures based on the Situational Crime Prevention approach. The Rapid Assessment Methodology (RAM) was employed using both quantitative and qualitative data. It involves spatial analysis, direct observation of hot spots using a safety audit protocol, and focus group discussions with key participants. Bus robberies involve minimum risk and low detection and arrest. The “hottest products” to be stolen include electronic devices and cash. The robberies occur at specific times and locations depending on opportunity. As many crimes go unreported, police data have inaccuracies. Therefore, it is impossible to verify the exact location of the robberies. This study concludes that for safe travel preventive measure should focus on reducing crime opportunities. A collaborative effort is needed from agencies and individuals alike. Further research should focus on examining why the majority of bus robberies are concentrated in only two main bus routes. Are these hot spots just recent spikes or are they chronic?
Tax collection with limited enforcement capacity may be consistent with both high- and low-delinquency regimes: high delinquency reduces the effectiveness of threats, thereby reinforcing high delinquency. We explore the practical challenges of unraveling the high-delinquency equilibrium using a mechanism design insight known as divide-and-conquer. Our preferred mechanism takes the form of prioritized iterative enforcement (PIE). Taxpayers are ranked using the ratio of expected collection to capacity use. Collection threats are issued in small batches to ensure high credibility and induce high compliance. Following repayments, liberated capacity is used to issue the next round of threats. In collaboration with a district of Lima, we experimentally assess PIE in a sample of 13,432 property taxpayers. The data validate and refine our theoretical framework. A semi-structural model suggests that keeping collection actions fixed, PIE would increase tax revenue by roughly 10%.
This chapter examines the simulated impact of sequential node deletion on a cryptomarket’s ease of operation. To this extent, computer simulations with incorporated network adaption and preferential selection were leveraged to better understand which strategic intervention(s) were most effective at disrupting the structural integrity of Abraxas’ network structure. Based on the results of the sequential node deletion, random targeting was found to be ineffective across the five outcome measures, producing a minimal and slow disruptive effect. Degree centrality and reputation targeting were the most effective strategies across all five outcome measures, consistently producing near-identical results. The disruption pattern demonstrated by these four targeting strategies was that the proportion of potential measurable values increases or decreases as more actors are removed. These values plateau as the network becomes completely fragmented. Furthermore, it is highly likely that these strategies are interrelated as the specific actors that are targeted are the same or similar. This suggests that, while the stated objectives of these targeting strategies are different, their functional performance is the same or similar. Finally, analyses of the disruptive impact of each targeting strategy show that degree centrality targeting, reputation targeting, total purchase price targeting and unique items bought/sold targeting are each based on a power law in which a small percentage of deleted nodes is responsible for an outsized proportion of the disruptive impact across all five outcome measurements (e.g. 1–5% of deleted nodes were responsible for 45–90% of disruptive impact). This particular study is important for cryptomarket disruption strategies as it demonstrates that the behaviour of an illicit trade network can be modelled (Duxbury & Haynie, 2019) and subsequently vivisected through an evidence-based calculus. Moreover, it provides insight into how law enforcement might approach the curtailment of a cryptomarket. As cryptomarket takedowns and the opportunistic arrest of vendors are not particularly effective in disrupting these entities long term, a carefully calibrated intervention that considers network dynamics, such as preferential selection, is warranted.
Cet article soutient qu’entre 1970 et 2020, les sciences criminelles ont réalisé des progrès scientifiques, méthodologiques et pratiques dans huit domaines : 1- Les sciences criminelles deviennent quasi expérimentales, ce qu’elles n’étaient pas. 2- La police scientifique détecte et analyse de plus en plus de traces. Elle les interprète et les utilise pour éclairer les enquêteurs et les services de rensei gnements. 3- La criminologie quantitative mesure la délinquance et la victimisation par de meilleures méthodes que par les statistiques policières et judiciaires traditionnelles. 4- Les gardiens de la paix répondent et interviennent avec plus de modération et plus rapidement aux appels des citoyens. 5- Les criminologues théorisent la prévention situationnelle et ils nouent une alliance avec les professionnels de la sécurité privée. 6- Les criminologues américains découvrent les points chauds du crime et les moyens de les résorber. 7- Les criminologues accumulent les vérifications sur l’efficacité de la dissuasion judiciaire traditionnelle et sur la dissuasion ciblée. 8- La prévention développementale s’affirme comme un art d’aider les parents à éduquer l'enfant à la non-violence.
Research Summary
European law enforcement agencies have begun to use targeted online ad campaigns to raise cybercrime awareness among at‐risk populations. Despite their rapid proliferation, there is little research to support their efficacy and effectiveness. This study uses a quasi‐experimental difference‐in‐differences design to evaluate the effect of seven campaigns deployed in 2021 and 2022 on the volume of (distributed) denial‐of‐service or (D)DoS‐attacks recorded in six European countries: Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Portugal. The results show mixed effects, suggesting that the campaigns are not clearly effective in reducing DDoS‐attacks in the short term.
Policy Implications
Law enforcement has partly justified the use of targeted online ad campaigns on the premise that they reduce DDoS‐attacks. However, this study shows that the evidence in this regard is inconclusive. If public support for the use of such campaigns is to be secured in the long term, law enforcement will likely need to rely on stronger arguments. The effect of this type of campaigns needs to be further investigated.
Criminological deterrence, the concept of deterring criminals and non-criminals from committing crimes, is central to the criminal justice system. Deterrence theory also has a place in school discipline, notably in the form of school zero-tolerance policies. In general, zero-tolerance policies prohibit people in authority from exercising discretion on a case-by-case basis, instead of mandating severe and certain punishments regardless of individual circumstances. Recent research on the negative consequences of zero-tolerance policies has caused the media and the federal government to regard zero tolerance in an increasingly critical light. A 2008 Zero Tolerance Task Force report by the American Psychological Association (APA) indicates that the use of zero-tolerance policies often fails to improve school discipline and is instead associated with higher rates of school dropout and failure to graduate (APA Zero Tolerance Task Force 2008). In addition, in 2014, the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice Civil Rights Data Collection briefing encourages educators to reduce their reliance on zero-tolerance punishments like suspensions and expulsions when creating safer learning environments (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights 2014). In the era of heightened educator accountability, it is appropriate to thoroughly evaluate whether zero-tolerance policies indeed contribute to furthering educational goals. This paper extends the debate on zero-tolerance policy by examining the relationship between zero-tolerance policies and student drug use in three different peer contexts.
Objectives
To examine the perceptual deterrent effect of an increase in police presence for a sample of previously adjudicated adolescents and address the limitations of existing perceptual deterrence research.
Methods
This study exploits the timing of Operation Safe Streets, a hot spots policing intervention designed to increase officer presence, which occurred during an ongoing longitudinal survey of previously adjudicated adolescents (n = 700). The effect of this intervention is tested using first-difference models of perceptions of arrest risk within-person over time. Sensitivity analyses and falsification tests are also conducted to provide further confidence in the findings.
Results
Results show that Operation Safe Streets is related to an increase in perceptions of arrest risk for one’s self, as well as perceptions of other’s arrest risk. This pattern holds for those who were and were not arrested. Furthermore, null findings for the effect of Operation Safe Streets on perceived social costs of punishment, as well as null findings from in-time placebo models, lend strong support that an increase in police officer presence did increase individuals’ perceptions of arrest risk in the months following the intervention.
Conclusions
This study is the first to test the perceptual deterrent effect of a police intervention aimed to reduce street crime. It is also one of the first to demonstrate that criminal justice policies impact perceptions of arrest risk. This study adds to our understanding of the success of hot spots policing by suggesting that one pathway for decreased crime is through changes in perceptions of arrest risk.
Globalization and new forms of crime have increased the spread of violence and threats toward individuals and
societies. It has become imperative to follow the recent trends in crime prevention, as they are proactive, participatory, stimulating the role of the individual and the community, and using technology. For this reason, the paper aims to show the latest approaches and practices in preventing delinquency and crime. Based on an integrative literature review methodology using evaluation, analysis, and synthesis, this paper examined the new crime trends to analyze current prevention initiatives, practices, and strategies. The Kyoto Conference (March 2021) was a theoretical entry point for monitoring global trends in crime prevention. The analysis showed that prevention through social development, situational prevention, and community-based prevention remain the most used and practical approaches, greatly enhanced by using new technologies. Results also showed that policies based on the city’s role and international coordination are among the latest trends. This paper also discussed the most critical tools in monitoring prevention programs, some models of comprehensive strategies, and the role of forensic sciences in developing prevention initiatives. Finally, the paper recommended making social development programs involving psychological factors a top priority, actively involving the community and civil society, creating an Arab observatory for crime, violence, and delinquency, founding a platform for the exchange of experiences and best practices, and launching an Arab Center for Youth Empowerment. The paper also recommended enhancing the role of forensic sciences in crime prevention, as they provide valuable data on the occurrence of criminal acts that can be used to predict and anticipate.
In the decision to the British appeals case Re H (Minors), Judge Lord Nicholls, talking about criminal behavior, stated that “that the more serious the allegation the less likely it is that the event occurred”. There is actually quite a bit of discussion about the conclusions that should be drawn from this observation in the literature, but I have not found much discussion of the question whether the observation is right . I find this surprising, and in this essay I want to inspect this question.
The question of how to deter sub-conventional activities—characterized by a limited role for the use of force—is one of the biggest puzzles in security studies. A way forward might be to use an enduring rivalry conflict management framework and to focus on findings from criminology. As the case study of 56 Estonian airspace violations suggests, executing sub-conventional deterrence is not an easy task to achieve. NATO’s deterrence success remains elusive, because there is no consistency in responding to these violations and no meaningful punishment. Yet many changes in frequency, intensity, and volatility of Russian intrusions over the last two decades indicate that a successful dissuasion, if not de-escalation, is still possible. To achieve that, NATO needs to improve information transmission, define its deterrence goals more narrowly, impose group-level costs, and implement dynamic deterrence mechanisms offering alternative modes of behavior.
The theft of refined oil products provides criminal groups with significant financial resources that threaten the environment and socio-economic stability of countries where it occurs. Violence is also associated with this criminal activity. Using crime script analysis, a detailed interpretation of the theft of oil via the illegal tapping of pipelines in Mexico was constructed. The analysis revealed the roles performed by members of criminal groups, the recruitment of individuals outside of the criminal group to provide information about the pipelines and perform technical activities, and the supporting role of citizens and businesses from local communities. The analysis also revealed the decision-making necessary for the successful commission of oil theft via the illegal tapping of pipelines. The use of situational crime prevention measures and improvements in the use of deterrence are identified as offering opportunities for preventing this criminal activity.
This Campbell systematic review assesses the effectiveness of focused deterrence strategies known as “pulling levels” in reducing crime. The review summarises findings from 10 studies, all of which report evidence from programmes in the US.
Pulling levers focused deterrence strategies are associated with a medium‐sized crime reduction effect. Nine out of 10 studies reported a statistically significant positive effect. There is a strongly significant medium size effect average effect across all studies.
Gang or group intervention programs had the largest effect, followed by the drug market intervention programs, with the smallest but still statistically significant effect for the high‐risk individuals programs.
All included studies use non‐randomized experimental designs, which have a risk of over‐stating impact. However, the effect size is large enough to have reasonable confidence in the effectiveness of these programs.
Abstract
BACKGROUND
A number of American police departments have been experimenting with new problem‐oriented policing frameworks to prevent gang and group‐involved violence generally known as the “pulling levers” focused deterrence strategies. Focused deterrence strategies honor core deterrence ideas, such as increasing risks faced by offenders, while finding new and creative ways of deploying traditional and non‐traditional law enforcement tools to do so, such as directly communicating incentives and disincentives to targeted offenders. Pioneered in Boston to halt serious gang violence, the focused deterrence framework has been applied in many American cities through federally sponsored violence prevention programs. In its simplest form, the approach consists of selecting a particular crime problem, such as gang homicide; convening an interagency working group of law enforcement, social‐service, and community‐based practitioners; conducting research to identify key offenders, groups, and behavior patterns; framing a response to offenders and groups of offenders that uses a varied menu of sanctions (”pulling levers”) to stop them from continuing their violent behavior; focusing social services and community resources on targeted offenders and groups to match law enforcement prevention efforts; and directly and repeatedly communicating with offenders to make them understand why they are receiving this special attention. These new strategic approaches have been applied to a range of crime problems, such as overt drug markets and individual repeat offenders, and have shown promising results in the reduction of crime.
OBJECTIVES
To synthesize the extant evaluation literature and assess the effects of pulling levers focused deterrence strategies on crime.
SELECTION CRITERIA
Eligible studies had to meet three criteria: (1) the program had to have the core elements of a pulling levers focused deterrence strategy present; (2) a comparison group was included; (3) at least one crime outcome was reported. The units of analysis had to be people or places.
SEARCH STRATEGY
Several strategies were used to perform an exhaustive search for literature fitting the eligibility criteria. First, a keyword search was performed on an array of online abstract databases. Second, we reviewed the bibliographies of past narrative and empirical reviews of literature that examined the effectiveness of pulling levers focused deterrence programs. Third, we performed forward searches for works that have cited seminal focused deterrence studies. Fourth, we searched bibliographies of narrative reviews of police crime prevention efforts and past completed Campbell systematic reviews of police crime prevention efforts. Fifth, we performed hand searches of leading journals in the field.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
For our ten eligible studies, we complete a narrative review of effectiveness and a formal meta‐analysis of the main effects of these programs on reported crime outcomes.
MAIN RESULTS
Based on our narrative review, we find that nine of the ten eligible evaluations reported statistically significant reductions in crime. It is important to note here that all ten evaluations used nonrandomized quasi‐experimental designs. No randomized controlled trials were identified by our search strategies. Our meta‐analysis suggests that pulling levers focused deterrence strategies are associated with an overall statistically‐significant, medium‐sized crime reduction effect.
CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that pulling levers focused deterrence strategies seem to be effective in reducing crime. However, we urge caution in interpreting these results because of the lack of more rigorous randomized controlled trials in the existing body of scientific evidence on this approach.
Research Summary
Public policy, including crime policy, is heavily shaped by economic theory. Recently, refinements based on the application of behavioral insights into the study of public policy applications have become en vogue. Although criminologists have made some inroads into incorporating behavioral principals into the study of crime and offender decision‐making, these contributions have mainly been limited to the area of risk. In this article, I offer a more widespread description of how behavioral economics (BE) can be applied to the study of offender decision‐making and crime policy. Specifically, I focus on several main areas that move beyond the traditional foci on perceptions of risk: intertemporal choice, criminal labor supply, mental accounting and consumption, and social preferences. For each topical area, I first identify a presumable, normative model that could reasonably be drawn from traditional rational choice theory. I then describe ways, based on existing contributions from BE, that scholars have sought to make the assumptions (and anomalies) of this model more realistic.
Policy Implications
The primary aim of this article is to highlight implications to theory and policy that increase the utilization of BE by criminologists.
During the first half of this century, most research on deterrence suggested that punishment had little effect on behavior. These findings tended to confirm the ideological position of most sociologists, who generally assumed that criminal behavior was not and probably could not be controlled by legal sanctions. However, recent developments indicate that this assumption is in error. First, laboratory research (e.g., Banduara, 1969:292-353; Bandua and Walters, 1963) has demonstrated that under certain conditions, punishment can effectively and efficiently control behavior, and that such control can be obtained through vicarious reinforcement. Second, and more important, research since 1960 by both economists and sociologists, generally more sophisticated than earlier work, suggests that legal sanctions often play a significant role in preventing criminal behavior. (See, for example, Chambliss, 1966; Gibbs, 1968; Tittle, 1969; Logan, 1972; Chiricos and Waldo, 1970; Tittle and Rowe, 1974; 1973; Jensen, 1969; Waldo and Chiricos, 1972; Phillips and Votey, 1972; Phillips, 1973). Thus the issue for future research is no longer whether legal sanctions ever deter criminal behavior, but the specification of the conditions under which they have such an effect. This paper seeks to develop some hypotheses to guide future research on these conditions.
Proponents of the newer intermediate sanctions argue that there are “equivalencies” of punishment between community-based and prison sentences and that, at some level of intensity, community-based programs have roughly the same punitive “bite.” There is little research, however, on the relative severity of intensive supervision in comparison to other sanctions. This study was designed to examine how offenders and staff in Minnesota rank the severity of various criminal sanctions and which particular sanctions they judge equivalent in punitiveness. In addition, we explored how both groups rank the difficulty of commonly imposed probation conditions and which offender background characteristics are associated with perceptions of sanction severity. Our results suggest that there are intermediate sanctions that equate, in terms of punitiveness, with prison. For example, inmates viewed 1 year in prison as “equivalent” in severity to 3 years of intensive probation supervision or 1 year in jail, and they viewed 6 months in jail as equivalent to 1 year of intensive supervision. Although inmates and staff ranked most sanctions similarly, the staff ratings were higher for 3 and 6 months in jail and lower for 1 and 5 years probation. The two groups also differed on the difficulty of complying with individual probation conditions: Staff judged most probation conditions as harder for offenders to comply with than did inmates. Our results provide empirical evidence to support what many have suggested: It is no longer necessary to equate criminal punishment solely with prison. At some level of intensity and length, intensive probation is equally severe as prison and may actually be the more dreaded penalty. The results should give policymakers and justice officials pause, particularly those who suggest they are imprisoning such a large number of offenders—not to use prisons' ability to incapacitate and rehabilitate—but rather to get “tough on crime.”
Panel data fail to support a subjective expected utility model of corporate deterrence. There is partial confirmation, however, that chief executives of small organizations who perceive the certainty of detection as high have better regulatory compliance in their organizations. Perceived sanction threats do not work significantly more effectively for chief executives (a) of for-profit versus nonprofit organizations; (b) who are owners as well as managers; (c) who say they think about sanctions more (sanction salience); and (d) who have a weaker belief in the law. Nor does the effectiveness of corporate deterrents depend on compliance costs. There is, however, a significant deterrent effect for managers who are low on emotionality, but an opposite counter-deterrent effect for actors high on emotionality. This supports the critique of those who condemn rational actor models from a sociology of the emotions perspective. Emotions of guilt among managers predict the subsequent compliance of their organizations. The results are consistent with perceptual deterrent studies of individuals that find little effect of formal sanctions and social disapproval as deterrents, but stronger support for an effect of self-disapproval (guilt or shame) on law observance. Qualitative data are used to show why it would be folly to interpret these results as showing that business regulation can work without sanction threats and social disapproval. Rather, the data evince the need for a complete reconceptionalization of the way policy analysts think about the deterrence of law breaking.
Maintains that potential criminals make a few simple comparisons and partial examinations of crime opportunities. It is also argued that the relevant data for studying responses to crime opportunities are individual judgments rather than aggregate statistics. 36 adult and 43 juvenile male Ss (median ages 27 and 15 yrs, respectively), offenders and nonoffenders, evaluated 3 outcome gambles consisting of 4 dimensions: (a) the probability of a successful crime, (b) the money obtained if successful, (c) the probability of capture, and (d) the penalty if caught. Ss based their judgments primarily on a single dimension, although dimensional preferences varied greatly across Ss. Only minor differences existed among the types of Ss. Money was the most important dimension, followed by penalty, probability of success, and probability of capture. These findings support the proposed approach and suggest that making crime less profitable in comparison to noncrime opportunities may have stronger effects on crime rates than increasing the likelihood and severity of punishment. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Five experiments were conducted to assess the effects of several variables on the efficacy of feedback in reducing driving speed. Experiment 1 systematically varied the criterion used to define speeding, and results showed that the use of a lenient criterion (20 km/hr over the speed limit), which allowed for the posting of high percentages of drivers not speeding, was more effective in reducing speeding than the use of a stringent criterion (10 km/hr over the speed limit). In Experiment 2 an analysis revealed that posting feedback reduced speeding on a limited access highway and the effects persisted to some degree up to 6 km. Experiments 3 and 4 compared the effectiveness of an unmanned parked police vehicle (Experiment 3) and a police air patrol speeding program (Experiment 4) with the feedback sign and determined whether the presence of either of these enforcement variables could potentiate the efficacy of the sign. The results of both experiments demonstrated that although the two enforcement programs initially produced larger effects than the feedback sign, the magnitude of their effect attenuated over time. Experiment 5 compared the effectiveness of a traditional enforcement program with a warning program which included handing out a flier providing feedback on the number and types of accidents occuring on the road during the past year. This experiment demonstrated that the warning program produced a marked reduction in speeding and the traditional enforcement program did not. Furthermore, the warning program and a feedback sign together produced an even greater reduction in speeding than either alone.
There is a prediction implicit in any discussion of age structure and crime. It is that the generation that made the crime wave can break it, too. Landon Y. Jones, Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation adult homicide rates have fallen continuously for over twenty years. Although it has not gone completely unnoticed, the decline in adult homicide has not figured prominently in recent scholarly attention devoted to violent-crime trends in the United States, which has been dominated by the issue of youth violence. The result is that little is known about patterns of adult violence – a notable exception being domestic or “intimate partner” violence – and we have neither the theory nor requisite research for understanding the decline in adult homicide, including the drop in intimate partner killings. That would not be a big problem for homicide research if adults contributed little to the overall homicide rate. Yet persons 25 years old or older make up over 60 percent of all homicide victims and nearly one-half of the offenders. Moreover, with the aging of the baby boomers, adults are not only the largest but also the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1996a, p. 24, Table 23). An accurate, comprehensive, and policy-relevant portrayal of the recent violence – the goal of this volume – must, therefore, include a description of the patterns among adults, and should offer some assessment of alternative explanations for the two-decade-long decline in adult homicide. © Cambridge University Press 2000, 2006 and Cambridge University Press, 2010.
In the mid-to late 1990s, violent crime plummeted nationwide. The Uniform Crime Report (UCR 1998) program documented a 28 percent decline in homicides recorded by the police from 1993 to 1997 and similar or larger declines in robbery and aggravated assault. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) also identified a 21 percent decline in reported victimization for violent crimes (U.S. Dept. of Justice 1998). These statistics are discussed in detail in Chapters 2 and 9. This chapter examines the cultural changes behind the statistical trends. Violence is the outgrowth of personal interactions. The violence statistics thus reflect a propensity based on the way people are organized and interact. We suggest that the recent decline in violence reflects fundamental transformations in drug use and sales. This chapter focuses in detail on inner-city New York, our geographic area of greatest expertise. New York City has historically had the nation's largest number of heroin users and crack users, the largest and most diverse market for illegal drugs, and a disproportionate share of crime, violence, and disorder in public places (Musto 1973, 2000). Golub and Johnson (1997) found evidence to suggest that similar changes in recent drug use prevailed across much of the nation; this observation provides limited evidence to suggest that comparable subcultural transformations might have occurred in other locations. © Cambridge University Press 2000, 2006 and Cambridge University Press, 2010.
The annual prevalence of heroin use among a cross-section of black adolescents and young adults from Harlem fell from eight percent in 1970–71 to less than three and a half percent in 1975–76. The most important component of this change was a sharp decline in the rate of heroin initiation among younger birth cohorts. Controlling for differential opportunity based on age of cohorts, twenty-two percent of this sample who were born in 1952 initiated use of heroin by age 18, compared to three percent of those born in 1957.
The explanation that appears most plausible for these findings is that, for most individuals, the actions of initiating and continuing heroin use appear to be a product of rational choice. And the context within which that choice was made was appreciably altered in this generation unit of Harlem youth.
The relation between drug trafficking (selling and delivering) and drug use among young adolescents has remained poorly characterized to date. In the current study, the associations between drug trafficking, cigarettes and/or alcohol use, and illicit drug use have been explored in three different areas—self-reported behaviors, personal feelings, and perception of friends' involvement—based on a sample of 455 African American youths 9 through 15 years of age residing in six urban public-housing developments. Results confirm findings from previous research that illicit drug use rarely occurs in the absence of cigarette/alcohol use or drug trafficking. By contrast, drug trafficking is equally likely to occur in isolation of, or along with, some drug use. The results support a potential role of drug trafficking in the genesis of illicit drug use. Prevention efforts should extend their focus beyond cigarettes, alcohol, and illicit drug use to drug trafficking.
Michigan's Felony Firearm Statute (Gun Law) imposed a two-year mandatory add-on sentence for defendants convicted of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The Law was widely advertised with proponents claiming that it would introduce greater equity in sentences, ensure certainty of punishment, and decrease violent crime in the state. We examine the processing of these Gun Law cases in Detroit Recorders Court, as well as the effects of the law on crime, and find that most of the goals of the Law's proponents are not met. Notwithstanding a rigid prosecutorial policy which prohibited plea bargaining in these gun cases, alternative mechanisms developed to mitigate the Law's effects and, in most instances, to preserve the "going rate" for various crime categories. Similarly, using an interrupted time-series model, we are unable to uncover effects of the law, or the associated publicity campaign, on violent crime.
This paper examines gender differences in perceived chances of arrest for six familiar types of lawbreaking. Most crime theories
predict that women should give higher arrest estimates than men, and we note five common explanations for this prediction.
These include differential stakes in conformity, differential cognitive dissonance between gender role expectations and objective
risks, differential perceived visibility, differential conventionality, and differential knowledge of crime and sanction.
Survey data from a sample of U.S. adults show that women perceive systematically higher chances of arrest than do men, and
that differential visibility and differential stakes in conformity seem to be the most promising accounts for these differences.
At the same time, these variables are only modest predictors of overall individual patterns in perceived arrest risks. This
suggests that much additional work on the patterns and determinants of risk perception is necessary before an adequate picture
of more general variation in risk perceptions can be drawn.
This report describes a study of the effects of a Scandinavian-style law concerning alcohol-impaired driving. The past two decades have seen the adoption throughout most of the developed world of drinking-and-driving laws based on principles originally developed in Norway and Sweden. The French law of July 12, 1978, was a part of this general development. Interrupted time-series analysis of French data on crash-related injuries and fatalities shows that the 1978 law had a notable deterrent effect, but that the effect was not permanent.
Previous work dealing with the deterrent effects of legal sanctions has lacked an appropriate sociological context. This paper adopts a theoretical perspective which views legal threats as only one mechanism which may produce conformity. Our framework, which is consistent with both the social control and social influence literature, emphasizes the possible importance of extralegal factors in the production of conformity. We illustrate the methodological implications of our approach empirically with a test of the deterrence doctrine that focuses on the use of marijuana. A multiple regression analysis of data obtained from a sample of both marijuana users and nonusers in a jurisdiction with severe penalties for the use of marijuana indicates that the criminal law receives support from certain extralegal inhibitory influences. Moreover, when the relative efficacy of these extralegal influences are compared to the controlling effects of legal threats, the extralegal influences are found to be the more important.
Research Summary
Data concerning burglary rates and, among other things, the timing and intensity of publicity campaigns were acquired for 21 burglary reduction schemes. Statistical analyses showed clear effects of publicity as follows: (1) schemes that employed stand‐alone publicity campaigns were the most effective in reducing burglary; (2) time‐series analyses demonstrated that burglary reduction was coincident with intense periods of publicity; and (3) across the 21 schemes, there was evidence of a drop in the burglary rates prior to the implementation of the schemes, a so‐called anticipatory benefit.
Policy Implications
The results suggest that the effectiveness of crime reduction schemes may be significantly enhanced by publicity. Promoting schemes prior to their implementation may also produce an anticipatory benefit, as was observed here. This suggests that carefully planned publicity campaigns may represent a powerful yet cost‐effective tool in crime prevention.
Academics have long studied the basic dimensions of homicide, with Marvin E. Wolfgang's pioneering 1958 classic, Patterns in Criminal Homicide, defining the shape of criminological research on homicide. However, this research has generally contributed relatively little to practical homicide prevention strategies. Recently, problem-solving initiatives have undertaken homicide studies in particular cities with the goal of understanding homicide patterns and dynamics and crafting city-specific intervention strategies. One such initiative in Minneapolis found that a large component of the city's homicides was committed by and against chronic, gang-involved offenders. Particularly where youth homicide was concerned, the Minneapolis findings were very similar to recent findings regarding youth homicide in Boston. Based in part on these findings, a “pulling levers” strategy focused on deterring violent offending by gang members, and on reducing tensions between gangs, was designed and implemented. Although very preliminary, initial results from the Minneapolis intervention appear to be promising.
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This research tests the hypothesis that experience with legal sanctions raises one's perceptions of severity of punishment. Perceptions were measured among a group of adults after their arrest and the imposition of sanctions. The findings indicate that, overall, respondents raised their perceptions after their encounter with the criminal justice system. Particularly, among those who received more severe sanctions, a significantly higher number raised their perceptions as compared to those who lowered them. Among those who received lighter punishments, no significant difference was found between those who raised and lowered their perceptions. The implications for the deterrence doctrine are discussed.
The general disrepute of the "classical" school of criminology and of the theory that capital punishment deters murder has led many investigators to assume that punishment, as administered through formal sanctioning agencies, does not prevent norm vio lation. An intensive study of parking violators indicates that, at least in this limited area, an increase in the severity and certainty of punishment does act as a deterrent to further violation. These findings suggest the necessity for a reappraisal of current think ing. Studies demonstrating the ineffectuality of punishment as a deterrent to certain types of offenses should not be interpreted to mean that punishment is ineffective in deterring all types of offenses.
Mandatory sentences for crimes committed with a gun are a popular policy because they promise a reduction in gun violence at a relatively low cost. In this article we present some results of a study of the implementa tion of such a law in Detroit, Michigan. Two major questions are discussed: (1) what effect did the Michigan gun law have on the certainty and severity of sentences; and (2) did the gun law reduce the number of serious violent crimes in Detroit? We find that, although the law required a two-year mandatory sentence for felonies committed with a gun and the prosecutor followed a strict policy of not reducing the gun law charge, there was little change in the certainty or severity of sentences that could be attributed to the effects of the gun law. Only in the case of assault was there a significant change in the expected sentence. Also serious violent crimes—murder, robbery, and assault—follow patterns over time that lead us to conclude that the gun law did not significantly alter the number or type of serious crimes in Detroit.
Recent correctional reforms have ameliorated the deprivations of prison and indirectly have caused states to toughen probation because many offenders must be diverted from incarceration to meet court-defined limits on prison crowding. These changes raise the possibility that offenders increasingly may view prison as easier or less punitive than probation. Using interview data from newly incarcerated Texas offenders, this analysis examines the extent to which offenders prefer incarceration when presented with choices between paired prison and probation sentences. Though a number of demographic and experiential variables are examined, multivariate analysis reveals that being African-American is the strongest predictor of a preference for prison. Implications of these results are discussed.
Gang violence presents a major challenge to police departments in the United States. Problem-oriented policing has been suggested as a promising way to understand and prevent complex gang violence problems. Unfortunately, problem analysis, as currently practiced, is generally weak and the resulting responses usually consist of mostly traditional enforcement tactics. Academic-police partnerships can be very productive in understanding and responding to serious crime problems. Unfortunately, such collaborations are rare. The U.S. Department of Justice-sponsored Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative provides an important opportunity to facilitate academicpolice partnerships. In Lowell, Massachusetts, academics and practitioners collaborated on a problem analysis that shed important light on the nature of gang violence and led to the implementation of problem-oriented responses that have been promising in preventing gang violence.
Eight independent variables suggested by extant theories of deviance/conformity are compared in ability to predict independently
nine different kinds of self-estimated future deviance. Data were gathered in a sample survey of the populations aged 15 and
over in New Jersey, Iowa, and Oregon. The results support the view that at least some kinds of sanction fear are major contributors
to conformity. Fear of interpersonal loss of respect was found to be the second best predictor of the eight considered. But
perceptions of general or legal sanctions proved to be of minor or only moderate importance. The findings indicate that the
reinforcement value of a behavior, the probability of losing respect among those one knows personally, moral commitments,
and differential association are the primary determinants of conformity. But the results underline the need for a comprehensive
multiple-variable theory which can specify varied conditions under which conformity to or deviance from different kinds of
norms can be expected.
Research on violent behavior over the past fifteen years has generally assumed that violence between family members is fundamentally different from violence "in the streets." Criminologists and family violence researchers have been reluctant to conceptualize family violence as a form of criminal violence, and there has been little theoretical or empirical work on commonalities in violence across family and nonfamily settings. An analysis of three data sets from general populations (two national household surveys and a student survey) shows a link between physical assaults in the family and assaults and other crime outside of the family. Evidence was found for both victimization effects and offender effects. Both adult and child victims of violence are more likely to perpetrate assaults and other aggression outside the family than are nonvictims. Violent offenders in the family are also more likely to assault nonfamily members. These victim and offender effects do not disappear when controlling for socioeconomic status, gender, or severity of family violence. The findings support the social learning thesis that training in violence is generalizable across settings and across targets.
SUMMARY Crime - at least crime of the sort which often leads to arrest and punishment - tends to attract those who are reckless and impulsive, rather than those who fit the model of self-interest ed rationality. That simple observation has strong implications for efforts aimed at both deterrence and rehabilitation, but those implications have either not been drawn or not been acted on. Moreover, the obvious opposition of interest between offenders and everyone else has been allowed to conceal from the public consciousness the common interest in improving offenders' capacities for self-command. The relatively small number of offenders (no more than three million all told) who are frequent, high-dose users of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamineii account for such a large proportion both of crime and of the money spent on illicit drugs that getting a handle on their behavior is inseparable from getting a handle on street crime and the drug markets. Yet current policies for dealing with them ignore everything we know both about addiction and about deterrence. For the reckless and impulsive, deferred and low-probability threats of severe punishment are less effective than immediate and high-probability threats of mild punishment. By contrast, current practices for dealing with offenders over-rely on severity at the sacrifice of certainty and immediacy.
Interviews over 120 sellers and low-level distributors of the drug “crack” in New York City. Documents seller strategies to counter police tactics. Finds that crack sellers and distributors have developed several important strategies to limit vulnerability to arrest, but that success in avoiding arrest diminishes considerably once they are detected by police. Suggests that problem-oriented approaches are better than crackdowns, since they permanently disrupt the environmental conditions that foster drug market sites.
The relationship between crimes and arrests is one of the central issues in deterrence theory. There are several conceptual difficulties in attempting to assess whether arrests deter crimes or the number of crimes determine the number of arrests. These problems are compounded when rates are used to measure both variables. The issue is whether criminals respond to arrests or the police respond to changes in crime. The present analysis compares regression results when the variables are measured both as rates and raw numbers for three offenses: homicide, robbery, and burglary. The results indicate that arrests follow crimes. This suggests the need to reexamine some studies that argue that criminals’perceptions of arrest rates are an indication of deterrence.
Research Summary: Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), which for the past several years has been the major federal initiative to combat gun violence, includes several elements (such as gun locks and other efforts to reduce gun availability) that research suggests are likely to have at best modest effects on gun crime. In general, enforcement activities targeted at the “demand side” of the underground gun market currently enjoy stronger empirical support. However much of PSN's budget has been devoted to increasing the severity of punishment, such as by federaliz-ing gun cases, which seems to be less effective than targeted street-level enforcement designed to increase the probability of punishment for gun carrying or use in crime.Policy Implications: PSN and other enforcement activities could be made more effective by redirecting resources toward activities such as targeted patrols against illegal gun carrying. Given the substantial social costs of gun violence, an efficiency argument can also be made for increasing funding beyond previous levels.
This research makes use of factor analysis to locate important dimensions of individual differences in perceptions of legal punishments. A sample of 152 recently arrested persons provided magnitude estimates of the seriousness of several types and levels of punishment. A factor analysis of the data showed that the major dimensions of individual differentiation were in responses to (a) lengthy periods of imprisonment; (b) several punishments judged less serious, including short periods in jail or on probation; and (c) fines. Regressions of the factor scores on individual characteristics are reported, and the implications of the analysis for deterrence theory are discussed.
We examine the effects of criminal activity and criminal conviction on the income and job stability of young British offenders. Using longitudinal data on job market performance, as well as self-reported data on criminality and official records on conviction, we estimate the separate effects of criminality and conviction. We find that criminality alone has no effect on job performance, whereas conviction increases both job instability and pay. These results confirm results we have obtained elsewhere showing that conviction increases the income of young offenders. We explain the positive effect of conviction on pay by appeal to a human capital explanation of workers' pay.
We examined the relation between 38 nationally televised news or feature stories about suicide from 1973 to 1979 and the fluctuation of the rate of suicide among American teenagers before and after these stories. The observed number of suicides by teenagers from zero to seven days after these broadcasts (1666) was significantly greater than the number expected (1555; P = 0.008). The more networks that carried a story about suicide, the greater was the increase in suicides thereafter (P = 0.0004). These findings persisted after correction for the effects of the day of the week, the month, holidays, and yearly trends. Teenage suicides increased more than adult suicides after stories about suicide (6.87 vs. 0.45 percent). Suicides increased as much after general-information or feature stories about suicide as after news stories about a particular suicide. Six alternative explanations of these findings were assessed, including the possibility that the results were due to misclassification or were statistical artifacts. We conclude that the best available explanation is that television stories about suicide trigger additional suicides, perhaps because of imitation.
We assessed the effects of posted feedback and warning ticket programs on speeding and accidents in two cities. In Experiment 1, speeding feedback signs were effective even when 10 were used in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and reductions in speeding were associated with reductions in accidents. The effectiveness of the signs was correlated with the number of intersections and residences within 0.5 km beyond them, and the signs had no effect on untreated streets. In Experiment 2, posted feedback and a warning program reduced speeding and accidents on 14 streets in Haifa, Israel.
Objective/methodology:
Drug trafficking by minority youths in low-income, urban areas has received considerable publicity from the mass media in the past half-decade. However, there has been corresponding little exposition of this problem in the medical literature. This review was undertaken to provide an overview of the epidemiology and consequences of drug trafficking among urban youths and to describe factors associated with drug trafficking.
Results:
Existing data indicate that approximately 10% of male, urban, African-American early adolescents report having engaged in drug trafficking, with a higher percent of youths reporting having been asked to sell drugs and/or indicating that they expect to become involved in drug trafficking. Rates increase with advancing age. Reported rates of drug trafficking are comparable with rates of tobacco and alcohol use among early adolescents and are substantially higher than use rates of illegal drugs. Drug trafficking is associated with increased mortality, accounting for one third to one half of homicide-related deaths in some studies. The practice is also associated with other health-risk behaviors, including nonfatal violence, substance use, and incarceration. Perceived social pressures by family members and/or peers to engage in drug trafficking and the belief that a youth's wage-earning potential is limited to drug trafficking are highly correlated with involvement in this activity.
Conclusions:
Drug trafficking is a prevalent risk behavior among adolescents that has several negative health consequences.