Maynard L. Erickson

The deterrence doctrine and the perceived certainty of legal punishments.

This research on the deterrence doctrine differs from previous investigations by focusing on perceived properties of legal punishments rather than objective properties. Data from a survey of 1,700 high school students in Arizona show a close inverse relation among 15 types of crimes or delinquencies between the median or mean perceived certainty of punishment (arrest or reformatory) and rates of self-reported acts. However, the same relation holds between the rates and the perceived seriousness of acts, which is taken as indicative of the social (extralegal) condemnation of crime. Furthermore, the perceived certainty of punishment and perceived seriousness are so highly collinear that their effects on the rates cannot be differentiated. Although the findings cannot be viewed as conclusive evidence against the deterrence doctrine, they raise doubts about previous interpretations of the inverse relation among states between the objective certainty of imprisonment and crime rates. The relation has no bearing on the perceptual assumptions that enter into the deterrence doctrine, and the present findings indicate that the relation could reflect differential social condemnation of crime. (abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1977. Copyright

The Group Context of Delinquent Behavior.

Cumulative empirical evidence suggests that the majority of offenses for which juveniles are apprehended involved more than one offender. Evidence supporting this claim has generally been interpreted as support for the theoretical assertion that “delinquency is predominantly a group phenomenon.” However, most of the studies reported in the literature are based exclusively on official records (either police or juvenile court records), and thus the question arises whether the proportion of offenses committed by groups would also be high if other sources of data were utilized. This paper reports the results of a study of “self-reported” delinquent behavior with specific emphasis on the extent to which offenses that individuals report having committed took place in a “group context.” The relationship between “group violation rates” (proportion of self-reported offenses that were committed in a group context) and other characteristics of offenses are examined. An analysis is made of the relationships between group violation rates, seriousness of offense, frequency of violation, frequency of arrest, and arrest rates.

Crime Rates of American Cities in an Ecological Context

Given a city that contains only a small proportion of the residents in the larger ecological community, the conventional crime rate for that city could be high merely because the denominator of the rate underestimates the potential number of victims or offenders. Accordingly, there is a basis for anticipating a direct relatinship among cities between (1) community/city population size rations and (2) rates for particular types of crimes. The relationship does hold for many American cities when Urbanized Areas (UAs) or Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs) are taken as approximations of communities; but it holds only for singular cities, each of which is the only central city in a SMSA. The argument of this paper is that singular cities are much more homogeneous as regards dominance within the cmmunity than are other types of cities, and that dominance determines the extent to which a city will attract nonresident participants in crimes. In any case, the findings cast doubts on the use of conventional crime rates for cities in testing theories.

Objective and Perceptual Properties of Legal Punishment and The Deterrence Doctrine

While most previous deterrence investigations examine the relation between the objective probability of arrest or imprisonment and the official crime rate among states or counties, the present research examined the same relation among ten types of crimes in the same jurisdiction–Tucson, Arizona. We also consider the public perception of the certainty of arrest for eacy type of crime, and the public disapproval of each type of crime is introduced as a control variable. Consistent with two basic premises of the deterrence doctrine, the crime rate varies inversely with both the objective certainty of arrest and the perceived certainty. However, none of the relations are more than moderately close. Contrary to the premises of the deterrence doctrine, the findings indicate that the objective certainty of punishment is not related to the crime rate through perceived certainty. No less important, when the social condemnation of crime is controlled, there is no significant relation between the perceived certainty of punishment and the crime rate.

Public Knowledge of Statutory Penalties: The Extent and Basis of Accurate Perception

Statutory penalties may deter potential offenders from criminal activity, but any argument along that line entails assumptions about the publics knowledge of those penalties. Using survey data obtained from 2400 adults residents of Tucson, Arizona, this research examines perceptions of the applicability and the maximums of five types of penalties for nineteen types of crimes. Respondents do associate types of penalties (e.g., imprisonment) with types of crimes (e.g., murder), and their perceptions of statutory maximums (e.g., ten years imprisonment) are at least moderately correlated with the actual maximums stipulated in the Arizona Criminal Code; but multivariate analyses suggest that those perceptions reflect public preferences as to appropriate sanctions for crimes and not necessarily actual knowledge of statutory penalties.

Reforming the Juvenile Justice System: The Diversion of Status Offenders

Diversion has emerged as one of the most popular reform tactics in the juvenile justice system. An analysis of a two-year diversion program for status offenders revealed significant conceptual and operational ambiguity. The notion of a progression of a delinquent career from status to criminal offenses was not supported. The utilization of community-based programs in place of the juvenile court resulted in agency competition for clients and lengthy treatment programs for status offenders. Finally, the impact of specialized treatment for status offenders on behavioral and attitudinal measures was not significant. It was concluded that diversion programs developed exclusively for status offenders may be predicated on faulty assumptions.

Community Tolerance and Measures of Delinquency

van Vechtens toleration quotient will have no impact on deviance theory without research on the empirical relation between the quotient s numerator (volume of deviance) and denominator (tolerance of deviance). This relation was examined by comparing attitudes toward, self-reported extent of, and arrest and court-referral rates for various juvenile offenses within and across four Arizona communities. Three variables were used as indicators of volume of delinquency: (1) self-reported offenses by juveniles, (2) number of juveniles arrested, and (3) number of juveniles referred to court. Three variables were used as measures of community intolerance of delinquency: (1) intensity of public disapproval, expressed as a magnitude, (2) severity of public opinion, expressed as a choice of an appropriate reaction to delinquency (e.g., commit ment to a reformatory), and (3) the objective certainty of legal reactions to delinquency, as measured by the relation between self-reported offenses and self-reported arrests and/or court referrals. Generally, there is a fairly, close inverse relation between intolerance as measured by severity of public opinion and extent of delinquency as measured by rate of self-reported offenses.

On Assessing the Effects of Official Reactions to Juvenile Delinquency

Intervention effects have been minimized or denied in delin quency literature. The theoretical and methodological difficulties of assessing intervention effects are discussed. A set of methods featuring the interrupted time series experimental design are de veloped and illustrated with data from the Provo Experiment. Pro nounced effects of intervention are found, independent of the effects due to maturation and differential opportunity. The findings comport closely to a social control model and provide little sup port for labeling theory. Replications and elaborations of the design are urged.

Schools for Crime

The article by Theodore M. Newcomb in this issue of the Journal of Research raises many unresolved, long-standing correctional issues that are worthy of commentary and/or further development. Even the major policy recommendation has an old familiar ring to it, as does the rationale for making that recommendation. Newcomb calls for a dismantling of the &dquo;schools for crime&dquo; in America. He first shows, once again, that larger correctional institutions (viz., reform schools and prison-like institutions) are reservoirs which retain for extended periods persistent offenders who come from bad home environments and who continue to have high rates of delinquent offenses during their period of incarceration. He then concludes that these places are the &dquo;schools for crime&dquo; and ought to be &dquo;disestablished ... at once!&dquo; The widely held contention that correctional institutions (e.g., reform schools and prisons in particular) are &dquo;schools for crime&dquo; can be viewed as a

Potential for crime and knowledge of legal sanctions

The importance of knowledge of legal sanctions for deterrence is debatable, but the debate can be resolved only through exploratory research on the subject Using survey data, this research compares individuals in terms of the degree to which they accurately perceive statutory maximum prison sentences for 19 types of crimes. Contrary to expectations, evidence that high‐potential offenders perceived statutory maximums significantly more accurately than low‐potential offenders is rather limited, with most respondents unaware of maximum prison sentences. The empirical results also show that respondents apparently derive their perceptual estimates of the maximums from shared beliefs about what ought to be done to criminal offenders, not knowledge of what actually can be done to them, as indicated by the significant relationships between individual perceptions of maximum prison sentences and individual preferences for those sentences. The implications of those findings for developing and testing a theory of det...