Behavioral and Social Science 50 Years of Discovery (1986) / Chapter Skim
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Deterrence in Criminology and Social Policy
Deterrence in Criminology and Social Policy
Pages 129-152
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From page 129... ...
In recent years the estrangement between criminology and social policy on deterrence has shown signs of abating. This chapter examines recent social research on two important categories of modern human misconductstreet crime and drunk driving to explore the implications of recent criminological studies for policy on the deterrence of crime.
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From page 130... ...
Contemporary criminologists refer to this perspective as the "Positive School." For those who assume that crime is caused by factors outside the offender's control, the proper role of criminology is not to investigate the deterrent effects of variations in the law and its enforcement but, rather, to help ameliorate the problem of crime by identifying and taking steps to alter the biological, psychological, or social conditions that produce it. Whereas the classical perspective suggests the possibility of deterring crime through manipulating actual or expected rewards and punishments, the positive school recommends changing nonrational elements of the offender's psyche or environment.
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From page 131... ...
This failure was typically "proven" by the precipitous increase in crime rates in the last two decades (Wilson, 1975, 1983a, 1983b) ; by widely publicized prison disasters, such as those in Attica in 1969, and Santa Fe in 1980; and by mounting research evidence that many programs aimed at preventing recidivism through rehabilitation programs have been relatively ineffective (Martinson, 1974; Lipton et al., 19751.
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From page 132... ...
Within criminology, the deterrence proposition has generated new interest and a large and rapidly expanding research literature (see Zimring and Hawkins, 1973; Andenaes, 1974; Gibbs, 1975; Cook, 1977;Blumsteinet al., 1978;Tittle, 1980;Archeretal., 1983;forreviews)
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From page 133... ...
"Crime in the streets" has been a recurring national and political issue since the mid-1960s, and strategies for dealing with street crime are the subject of debates, media programming, political campaigns, and government commissions. In light of this interest social science knowledge concerning the effect of deterrence-based legal interventions bears important policy implications.
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From page 134... ...
Of particular interest are two studies of patrol efforts in New York City, "Operation 25" and the "20th Precinct" studies; the San Diego Field Interrogation project; a study of robberies in the New York City transit system; the LEAA High-Impact Anti-Crime project; and the Kansas City Preventive Patrol project. One of the earliest evaluations of increased patrol's effect in reducing street crimes was Operation 25 in New York City (see Zimring and Hawkins, 1973:348-3491.
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From page 135... ...
concludes that despite the falsification, there was a significant deterrent effect, although of lesser magnitude than the original evaluation suggested. Perhaps the most ambitious experiment in deterring street crime ever attempted in the United States was the High-Impact Anti-Crime Program, funded for $160 million by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration in 1972 (Chelimsky, 19761.
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From page 136... ...
Thus, modest support was obtained for the deterrence proposition from this very costly experiment. The Kansas City Preventive Patrol project was designed to test the relative effect on crime rates of three policing strategies: "proactive" patrol, with patrol car levels between two and three times the normal level; "normal" patrol; and no routine patrol, police entering the area only in response to calls for assistance (Kelling and Pate, 19741.
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From page 137... ...
The Death Penalty Capital punishment obviously cannot be experimentally manipulated, and examinations of its deterrent effect have been limited to comparisons of homicide rates in contiguous states with and without the death penalty (Campion, 1955; Sellin, 19591; to examinations of time-series data on homicide rates within one or more jurisdictions that change capital punishment laws (Sellin, 1959; Walker, 19691; and to comparisons of homicide rates within a jurisdiction before and after the imposition of a death sentence or execution (Graves, 1956; Savitz, 1958~. Although these studies have generally failed to find evidence for a deterrent effect of capital punishment, they have serious methodological problems that compromise their probative value.
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From page 138... ...
In any event, policy decisions about capital punishment are more likely to be affected by moral and ethical considerations than by the crude estimates of deterrent effects that present social research has produced. Other Punishments The quantity of studies of the deterrent effects of noncapital punishments on street crime is somewhat more impressive (for a review, see Nagin, 1978~.
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From page 139... ...
With few exceptions, crime rates are found to decline when measures are adopted to increase the certainty of punishment. However, there is much weaker conflation for the deterrence proposition in the matter of severity of punishment, with a few studies claiming an effect contradicted by numerous studies finding no effect.
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From page 140... ...
Evaluations of the law initially showed substantial deterrent effects: weekend night fatalities and serious injuries declined by more than half immediately following the imposition of the new rule, and attribution of the decline to the law was supported by the failure of comparable casualties to decline during nondrinking hours, as well as by behavioral data reported in polls and other sources (Ross, 1973; Saunders, 19751. However, the effect of the law was
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From page 141... ...
Police were given permission to conduct road blocks in which all drivers passing through could be tested for alcohol, with predictable controversy and publicity. Again, weekend-night serious casualties declined significantly with the inception of the law, and again a reversion was immediately evident, bringing matters back to the status quo ante within a year (Ross et al., 19821.
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From page 142... ...
Department of Transportation staff (1979) did find evidence for a deterrent effect, as measured by greater reductions in nighttime than in daytime fatal crashes, in 12 of the 25 sites, and in 8 of the 13 sites where the absolute level of nighttime crashes and a moderate population growth rate rendered evaluation less problematic.
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From page 143... ...
Moreover, the eventual punishment for those nonetheless convicted was slowed by considerable increases in delay between arrest and conviction. Summary The research to date on attempts to deter drunk drivers suggests that measures directed at increasing the perceived certainty of punishment can have a sharp, immediate deterrent effect on the proscribed behavior.
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From page 144... ...
The sheer resistance of the criminal justice system to piecemeal implementation of new penal sanctions may be the major finding of studies ostensibly testing the deterrence proposition. Second, most prior research on deterrence relies on the unsupported assumption that changes in objective levels of certainty and severity of punishment are reflected in the perceptions that are the subject of the theoretical proposition being tested.
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From page 145... ...
In the short run, at least, there is clear evidence that offense rates decline. In the long run, however, matters are not so clear, very likely because the deterrent effects depend on an overestimation of the chances of apprehension by the relevant public due to publicity and media attention surrounding the interventions.
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From page 146... ...
But we doubt that this is a profitable line of endeavor. There is little in accumulated experience with street crimes or drunk driving to suggest where, in the scale of probability of punishment, a threshold of appreciably greater effectiveness may lie, but it seems likely to involve levels of police intrusiveness and expense otherwise unknown in democratic societies.
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From page 147... ...
states the case, "The resiliency of courts and police when policy changes are induced by outside money investments is formidable." Thus, in a recent study of the response of police to the mandate to "do something about rape" in a large midwestern city (LaFree, 1981) , it was clear that the police changed those things easiest to change primarily recordkeeping while doing little about the things that the deterrence proposition suggests would be most important for actually reducing rape, such as increasing arrests and filing more felony complaints.
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From page 148... ...
LAURENCE ROSS and GARY D LAFREE For both street crime and drunk driving, this line of thought has led to suggestions for modifying the situation, rather than the individual, to reduce the problematic behavior.
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From page 149... ...
Blumstein, A., Cohen, J., and Nagin, D., eds. 1978 Deterrence and Incapacitation: Estimating the Elects of Criminal Sanctions on Crime Rates.
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From page 150... ...
Klein, L., Forst, B., and Filotov, V 1978 The deterrent effect of capital punishment: an assessment of the estimates.
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From page 151... ...
Cohen, and D Nagin, eds., Deterrence and Incapacitation: Estimating and Effects of Criminal Sanctions on Crime Rates.
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From page 152... ...
1976 The deterrent effect of the death penalty: facts vs. faiths.
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