Deterrence and delinquency: An analysis of individual data

Is commission of crime deterred by fear of arrest? Individual self-reported data on the commission of three crimes are analyzed in relation to perceived probabilities of arrest for more than 3000 French-speaking teenagers of the Montreal school population in 1974. The crimes are shoplifting, drug use, and stealing an item worth more than $50.00. In addition to the effect of the individuals' perceptions of the probability of arrest for the three crimes, age, sex, and previous arrest record are also taken into account. The data are all categorical. A multivariate log-linear probability model is estimated in order to test hypotheses concerning the direction and magnitude of bivariate associations among the variables. We conclude that there is clear evidence of a negative association between the subjective probability of arrest for each crime and the frequency of commission of that crime. We also find some negative cross-effects of the perceptions of the probability of arrest for one type of crime on the commission of another, holding constant the direct effects.     

The deterrent effect of the perceived certainty and severity of punishment: A review of the evidence and issues

This paper critically examines the role of the perceived certainty and severity of punishment in deterring criminal/deviant behavior. A thorough review of the perceptual deterrence literature from 1972–1986 is provided which indicates that cross-sectional correlations between perceptions of sanction threats and self-reported criminal/deviant behavior are moderately negative for diverse offenses, consistent with the deterrence doctrine. It is noted that rather than expressing the deterrent effect, these correlations probably indicate the effect of prior behavior on currently held perceptions—the experiential effect. In addition, since in many instances the reported correlations express simple bivariate relationships, the association may be spurious rather than causal. When researchers employing panel designs have estimated the deterrent relationship with variables in their correct temporal ordering and with more fully specified causal models, the moderate inverse effect for both perceived certainty and severity disappears. Although this would argue strongly for the continued utilization of longitudinal data and fully developed models of deterrence/social control, recent commentaries have raised questions about this line of perceptual deterrence research. These arguments are assessed and an agenda for future deterrence research suggested.     

Immigrants, assimilation, and perceived school disorder: An examination of the “other” ethnicities

Extant research on school disorder has largely ignored modern immigrant groups, or has lumped these groups in an “other” category. This was often done for pragmatic reasons, but it likely masked any unique experiences these groups had with regard to school disorder. The current study examined Latino and Asian immigrant students’ experiences with school disorder using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study. Findings indicated that Latino and Asian immigrant students report marked differences in school disorder. Current results revealed, in particular, that Asian immigrants report significantly higher levels of school disorder even though they outperform Latino students academically. Assimilation variables, however, have little to do with such perceptions. Implications from these findings are discussed.     

Incentivizing Responses to Self-report Questions in Perceptual Deterrence Studies: An Investigation of the Validity of Deterrence Theory Using Bayesian Truth Serum

Objective

Criminological researchers want people to reveal considerable private information when utilizing self-report surveys, such as involvement in crime, subjective attitudes and expectations, and probability judgments. Some of this private information is easily accessible for subjects and all that is required is for individuals to be honest, while other information requires mental effort and cognitive reflection. Though researchers generally provide little or no incentive to be honest and thoughtful, it is generally assumed that subjects do provide honest and accurate information. We assess the accuracy of deterrence measures by employing a scoring rule known as the Bayesian truth serum (BTS)—that incentivizes honesty and thoughtfulness among respondents.

Method

Individuals are asked to report on self-report offending and estimates of risk after being assigned to one of two conditions: (1) a group where there is a financial incentive just for participation, and (2) a BTS financial incentive group where individuals are incentivized to be honest and thoughtful.

Results

We find evidence that there are some important differences in the responses to self-reporting offending items and estimates of the probability of getting arrested between the groups. Individuals in the BTS condition report a greater willingness to offend and lower estimates of perceived risk for drinking and driving and cheating on exams. Moreover, we find that the negative correlation between perceived risk and willingness to offend that is often observed in scenario-based deterrence research does not emerge in conditions where respondents are incentivized to be accurate and thoughtful in their survey responses.

Conclusion

The results raise some questions about the accuracy of survey responses in perceptual deterrence studies, and challenge the statistical relationship between perceived risk and offending behavior. We suggest further exploration within criminology of both BTS and other scoring rules and greater scrutiny of the validity of criminological data.     

Deterrence and social control: Rethinking the relationship

Until recent years, the operationalization of the deterrence concept has been largely legal in nature. That is, deterrence was defined in terms of certainty and celerity of arrest and severity of sanction. Contemporary research has called this narrow viewpoint into question, pointing out that legal factors are only part of the range of social-control mechanisms. One of the more important of these reformulations was found to have an analytical flaw which could have easily affected the results (Meier and Johnson, 1977). The present study corrects the analysis problems of this previous study and upholds the findings that, for a sample of adult Texas residents, extralegal factors are of more import for determining marijuana use than traditional legal deterrence. Since both legal and extralegal factors are products of the social context, deterrence may be appropriately incorporated into contemporary social- control theories.     

Deterrence and the tipping effect

Previous research has focused on certaintyznty of punishment as one. factor. upon which any dzterrent effect of punishment might be contingent and Auggested that it must reach a critical tipping level before the deterrent effect becomes evident. Using data on index crimes and clearance. rates for. Virginia cities and counties, bupport was found for both the. deterrent effect and the exlstenee of a tipping level. Attention was directed towand a more precise specification of the form of the tipping effect, suggesting that there is a single critical tipping level and that it occurs at a relatively low level of certainty of punihment.     

Aggressive Policing and the Deterrence of Crime

Recent analyses of the relationship between crime and an aggressive patrol strategy have led to no single conclusion concerning the deterrent power of aggressive policing. This research adds to that debate by exploring the effects of a variety of aggressive patrol tactics on several different crimes. The empirical analysis, based on cross-sectional data from sixty urban neighborhoods, indicates that there appears to be no stable complex of police actions that constitute an aggressive patrol strategy. However, one form of police action usually included under the rubric of aggressive patrol—suspicion stops—may indeed deter certain types of criminal activity.     

Deterrence and brutalization: The dual effects of executions

On April 21, 1992, California received wide national attention when Robert Alton Harris was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin. Harris's execution marked a reintroduction of the death penalty in California after a 25-year moratorium. We use weekly time-series data on the level and type of criminal homicide incidents in the state from 1989 through 1995 to exploit the quasi-experimental qualities of this naturally occurring “experiment,” and assess the impact of Harris's execution on the incidence of homicide. As in several recent studies, we disaggregate criminal homicides into forms of murder highly likely to be affected by capital punishment: felony-murders of nonstrangers, for which we predict a deterrent effect, and argument-murders of strangers, for which we predict a brutalization effect. On the basis of an autoregressive integrated moving-average approach to time-series analysis, we find (as predicted) a significant decline in the level of nonstranger felony-murders and a significant increase in the level of argument-based murders of strangers in the period following the execution. Moreover, the increase in argument-based stranger murders associated with the Harris execution endured across a subsequent execution period, while the decline in nonstranger felony-murders shifted to the subsequent execution.     

Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Understanding Disparate Results

Objectives

Investigate how different model assumptions have driven the conflicting findings in the literature on the deterrence effect of capital punishment.

Methods

The deterrence effect of capital punishment is estimated across different models that reflect the following sources of model uncertainty: (1) the uncertainty about the probability model generating the aggregate murder rate equation, (2) the uncertainty about the determinants of an individual’s choice of committing a murder or not, (3) the uncertainty about state level heterogeneity, and (4) the uncertainty about the exchangeability between observations with zero murder case and those with positive murder cases.

Results

First, the estimated deterrence effects exhibit great dispersion across models. Second, a particular subset of models—linear models with constant coefficients—always predict a positive deterrence effect. All other models predict negative deterrence effects. Third, the magnitudes of the point estimates of deterrence effects differ mainly because of the choice of linear versus logistic specifications.

Conclusions

The question about the deterrence effect of capital punishment cannot be answered independently from substantive assumptions on what determines individual behavior. The need for judgment cannot be escaped in empirical work.     

Rethinking the one-stop-shop mechanism: Legal certainty and legitimate expectation

This paper aims to contribute to the discussion concerning the one-stop-shop mechanism proposed in the General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter “GDPR”). The choice of regulation as the instrument to legislate on data protection is already an unmistakable indication that unification and simplification (together with respect of data subjects' interests) shall be the guide for every legal discussion on the matter. The one-stop-shop mechanism (hereinafter “OSS”) clearly reflects the unification and simplification which the reform aims for. We believe that OSS is logically connected with the idea of one Data Protection Authority (hereinafter “DPA”) with an exclusive jurisdiction and that this can only mean that, given one controller, no other DPA can be a competent authority.² In other words, OSS implies a single and comprehensive competent authority of a given controller. In our analysis we argue that such architecture: a) works well with the “consistency mechanism”; b) provides guarantees to data subjects for a clear allocation of powers (legal certainty); and c) is not at odds with the complaint lodging procedure. Our position on fundamental questions is as follows. What is the perimeter of competence of the DPA in charge? We believe that it should have enforcement power on every issue of the controller, including issuing the fines. How to reconcile such dominant role of one DPA with the principle of co-operation among DPAs? We do not consider co-operation at odds with the rule that decisions are taken by just one single authority. Finally, we share some suggestions on how to make the jurisdiction allocation mechanism (the main establishment criterion) more straightforward.     

Product Liability in the European Union: Compensation and Deterrence Issues

In Europe a common standard of strict liability has been introduced with the European directive 85/374. The implementation of this Directive has not led to an expansion of product liability cases. Moreover neither the product nor the insurance market has been dislocated as in the United States. Both the fact that most liability cases continue to be discussed under national legislation—even when it is based on liability with fault—and the different price of insurance in Eurpean Countries show that the directive did not reach its harmonisation goals. We discuss the optional provisions that limit strict liability under the directive, but claim that the scarce impact of liability laws—in spite of increasing concerns for product safety—may be due to compensation provided by the Welfare State and to the cost of access to justice in Europe. Compensation by the Welfare State is inadequate with respect to the internalisation of the cost of accidents especially when public institutions do not file claims against liable producers. Product safety regulation should have performed the deterrence function. However we also point out that the threat of reputation losses is a powerful incentive for firms to carefully control product safety, when consumers increasingly care about product quality and accidents are heavily advertised by media.JEL Classification: K13, K41     

民事责任的预防功能

本文以经济学中的价格市场理论和外部性理论为工具,从预防角度考察民事责任（以损害赔偿为主）的社会功能,并指出为达到最佳预防目的,在两种不同的情况下,致害人应负损害赔偿数额的原理与计算方法。     

Beyond parenting: An examination of the etiology of self-control

While prior research testing Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) theory of low self-control had demonstrated a significant relationship between parenting and self-control, it had also recognized significant effects of other social factors, suggesting the etiology of self-control may be more complex than the theory specifies. In an effort to better understand this process, the current study examined first whether social factors other than parenting predicted self-control using both contemporaneous and lagged effects models, and second, whether the effect of parenting on self-control varied according to these social factors. Findings offered partial support for self-control theory. In implicit support of the theory, this study found that the effect of parenting on self-control was not conditioned by the competing social factors examined. Contrary to the theory, however, was the finding that self-control was predicted by both peer pressure and school social factors contemporaneously, even after controlling for parental monitoring.     

非法口供排除规则威慑效果实证分析

威慑潜在的非法取供行为是非法口供排除规则的重要功能之一,从新刑事诉讼法实施半年多的情况来看,非法口供排除规则在司法实践中具有一定的威慑效果,但效果有限。非法口供排除规则将会对未来的审讯行为产生重大的影响,但随着侦查机关对非法口供排除规则的进一步了解,非法口供排除规则的威慑效果将会大打折扣。非法口供排除规则及其保障措施的严格性、明确性和司法环境的优劣是影响非法口供排除规则威慑效果发挥的两大重要因素,将来应进一步确立严厉的、明确的规则并优化刑事司法环境。非法口供排除规则的影响是潜移默化的,对其功能的发挥应保持合理的期待。     

Intensive probation: An examination of recidivism and social adjustment

Intensive supervision was began as an extension of regular probation for those offenders who needed closer surveillance. However, in the last decade, Intensive Supervision has been used increasingly as an alternative to incarceration in order to help alleviate the problem of overcrowding in our prisons. In the eight-year period from 1977 to 1985, the prison population of this country has increased 68 percent. In view of this, many states are using intensive supervision as one alternative to reduce commitment rates. This study examines the effectiveness of one such program called the Intensive Treatment Supervision Program which operates out of the Montgomery County Adult Probation Department, Dayton, Ohio. The performances of probationers on intensive supervision are compared to a group of probationers on regular supervision to determine whether intensive supervision, through improved service delivery, can have an impact on high risk probationers and serve as a basis for a program to divert offenders from overcrowded facilities.     

Self-Interest and Altruism in the Deterrence of Transnational Bribery

This article explains why states in which bribe payers are located("payor states") criminalize transnational bribery. It suggeststhat these initiatives can enable selfinterested payor statesto improve the terms upon which their nationals obtain the servicesof foreign public officials. Although the legislation in questionis not patently designed to further economic interests, it maybe only partially enforced in a manner consistent with the economicinterests of payor states. This implies that further attentionshould be devoted to analyzing how anti-bribery legislationis enforced.