Mark Warr

A Reconceptualization of General and Specific Deterrence

The distinction between general and specific deterrence is widely recognized and accepted by deterrence researchers, and is used commonly to classify deterrence studies. However, the logical and empirical grounds for the distinction are not as clear as they might appear, and the conventional conception has done more to obfuscate than to clarify the deterrence process. Following a discussion of these issues, the authors propose a reconceptualization of general and specific deterrence, and apply it to several current controversies in the deterrence literature.

FEAR OF RAPE AMONG URBAN WOMEN

Sample survey data from Seattle are used to examine fear of rape among urban women. The magnitude and prevalence of such fear are striking, particularly among younger women, who fear rape more than any other crime. The high fear attached to rape stems from the fact that it is perceived to be both extremely serious and relatively likely; and from the fact that it is closely associated with other serious offenses such as homicide and robbery. Fear of rape also lies behind fear of other offenses among women in our sample, and is strongly associated with certain social or lifestyle precautions.

Explaining the Gender Gap in Delinquency: Peer Influence and Moral Evaluations of Behavior

Gender is one of the strongest correlates of delinquent behavior, but gender differences in delinquency have proven difficult to explain. Some analysts have called for gender-specific theories of delinquency, whereas others argue that males and females are differentially exposed to or differentially affected by the same criminogenic conditions. Building on the latter approach, this article draws on Sutherlands theory of differential association and Gilligans theory of moral development to argue that males and females are differentially affected by exposure to delinquent peers. Analysis of data from the National Youth Survey supports the hypothesis that moral evaluations act as a barrier to reduce or counteract the influence of delinquent peers among females, thereby producing large observed sex differences in delinquent behavior.

Rethinking Social Reactions to Crime: Personal and Altruistic Fear in Family Households

Research on fear of crime in the United States has concentrated on personal fear while overlooking the fear that people have for others in their lives—children, spouses, friends—whose safety they value. Sample survey data reveal that altruistic fear (fear for others) has a distinctive structure in family households and is more common and often more intense than personal fear. Many of the everyday precautions practiced by Americans and conventionally assumed to be self‐protective appear to be a consequence of altruistic fear. These and other findings underscore the need to understand fear of crime as a social rather than an individual phenomenon.

Public Goals of Punishment and Support for the Death Penalty

Social scientists and social commentators are often quick to impute motives to those who support capital punishment, but there is in fact little direct evidence on public goals of punishment or the way in which these goals influence public support for capital punishment. In a sample survey of Seattle residents, respondents were most likely to choose retribution as the primary purpose of punishment, followed by incapacitation, rehabilitation, specific and general deterrence, and normative validation. A preference for retribution increases dramatically with age, but declines with educational attainment. Proponents of retribution and normative validation are most likely to favor the death penalty, but, contrary to common assumption, retributivists constitute only a minority of those who support capital punishment.

Rape, burglary, and opportunity

Following on the recent development of opportunity theory in criminology, we apply an opportunity approach to rape. Although rape is commonly viewed as a “street” crime, a substantial proportion of rape occurs inside homes following an unlawful entry of the residence. Drawing on this observation, we argue that rape and burglary, because they share a common locus in the home, should exhibit similar opportunity structures. That is, characteristics that place particular types of homes and householders at greater risk of burglary should also place (female) residents at greater risk of rape. An analysis of UCR rates and censusderived opportunity variables for 155 SMSAs in 1980 supports this position. We conclude that home-intrusion rape (rape following an unlawful entry of the home) is a violent crime with the opportunity structure of a property crime.

Public Perceptions of Social Problems: Some Propositions and a Test

Research on social problems has largely overlooked a central question: What characteristics must a phenomenon possess before the general public will consider it a social problem? Only by answering that question will one have a clear basis for predicting the outcomes of campaigns to define phenomena as social problems. The authors propose that any phenomenon will be perceived as a social problem to the degree that people (1) condemn it (i.e., view it as wrong or hazardous), (2) perceive it to be frequent or prevalent, and (3) consider it mutable. Data from a 1981 survey of Seattle residents provide strong support for this position, but they also show that the effect of perceived mutability is contingent on the type of social problem under consideration.

Crime and Regret

Recent developments in neuroscience and social science are illuminating the critical importance of regret in human choices, including criminal decision making. After differentiating regret from related emotions (e.g., disappointment, sadness, shame), I argue that regret can prompt desistance from crime and that regret avoidance is a powerful mechanism of conformity. I then turn to American and European penal history to demonstrate that the invention of the prison was premised on the notion that solitary confinement could inculcate regret in prisoners and thereby change them profoundly. The place of regret in both historical and emerging thinking about human choice underscores its importance for understanding the connections between emotions and criminality.

Peers and Delinquency

Human beings differ from other species in a number of important ways. They are, for example, a visually oriented species. They evaluate and interact with their environment primarily in terms of what they see rather than what they smell (as do canines), hear (as do bats), or touch (as do starfish). At birth, humans are among the most helpless creatures on earth because most of their brain development, unlike most other species, takes place after they are born. Without knowledge of this fact, it would be impossible to understand how humans develop in the first two decades of life. Human beings are also highly social animals (unlike, say, bears or tortoises). They enjoy and even crave the company of their own kind, and prolonged separation from human contact (as occurred in the first prisons, for example) can lead to insanity and suicide. The social nature of our species means that who we are and what we do at any particular moment depends in part on who we are with. We behave differently in the presence of a teacher than in the presence of our best friend or worst enemy. We are different people around a girlfriend or boyfriend than we are around a co-worker, minister, or police officer. This occurs not because we are deceitful creatures but because we have acquired role expectations from our culture that define how we are to behave around others (and they with us). We expect those we call “friends,” for example, to be loyal, honest, and intimate, and we are hurt or angry when they fall short. We expect our parents to put our interests above (or at least on par with) their own, and we can be crushed when they fail to do so.

Data Bases and Statistical Systems: Crime and Delinquency

Abstract Criminal and delinquent behavior is inherently difficult to measure because it is surreptitious behavior and most crimes are never reported to the police. This article reviews the primary methods used by criminologists in the United States to measure criminal and delinquent behavior, and describes the advantages and limitations of each method. It provides historical context to the development of crime statistics and identifies some of the major sources of data on crime and delinquency available today.