Certainty, severity, and their relative deterrent effects: questioning the implications of the role of risk in criminal deterrence policy

In the late 60s, Gary Becker incorporated into his formal model of deterrence theory an explicit statement that the theory´s components—certainty and severity of punishment—are more or less influential than one another depending on an individual´s preference for risk. The certainty of punishment is more influential than the severity of punishment in the decision of whether or not to commit crime if an individual is risk acceptant; if a criminal is risk averse, then the severity of punishment is more important than the certainty of punishment. Many aggregate deterrence studies arrive at estimates that reveal varying effects of the certainty and severity components of deterrence theory, with the certainty of punishment carrying the greater, and many times the only, weight. Leaning on Becker´s extension of deterrence theory, empiricists assume that criminals have a preference for risk. Assertions that arrests and convictions are greater deterrent tools imply important worldly consequences because they indicate to governmental authorities where resources should be invested to insure the best deterrent payoff. In this paper, I question both the need to take risk into consideration in aggregate level deterrence studies and the empirical evidence that has been offered in support of attaching greater weight to the certainty of punishment. I show, first, that deterrence theory, from an applied policy standpoint, is encumbered through the explicit consideration of risk preferences. Next, I work through the algebra of the statistical formulations of deterrence models and demonstrate that the greater weight associated with certainty could well be an artifact of the model specification. Finally, I reanalyze data that appear to be consistent with the greater weight for certainty than severity argument and show that the evidence does not support that inference. Potential criminals mentally combine the three deterrence components—regardless of whether they are risk neutral, averse, or acceptant. I conclude by considering what it means to a worldly application of criminal deterrence theory to place equal weight on the certainty and the severity of punishment

Putting severity of punishment back in the deterrence package

Studies of criminal deterrence usually show an effect of certainty of punishment but often fail to find an effect of severity. This is a serious threat to the theoretical underpinnings of deterrence theory. Through both a survey of 39 analyses in 33 published studies and our own reanalysis of an often-used data set, we show the problem rests not with the theory but with the analysis of the theory. Finding no severity effect can be traced to â unbundling the theoretical packageâ when moving from the theory to the statistical models used to represent the theory

Evaluating delinquency policy interventions in Portugal

Social program and policies, interventions, and services, should be required to undergo rigorous systematic evaluation to address the policy question of how society should invest in the treatment of juvenile offenders in the institutional care system. Public policy decisions regarding programs for youths should be grounded on research-based knowledge and experience of academia and practitioners, program participants. Despite developments in intervention science, the existing empirical literature is seriously underdeveloped with respect to the issue of delinquency interventions and policies in Portugal. In other words, there is little systematic knowledge on the effects of existing policies in the youth system. In this paper, we address the available research and evidence on juvenile justice institutional interventions. We seek to explore the extent to which these are 1) informed by previous studies and 2) subject to analysis during and following policy termination.CIEC – Research Centre on Child Studies, IE, UMinho (FCT R&D unit 317), Portugal;National Funds through the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) and co-financed by European Regional Development Funds (FEDER) through the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program (POCI) with the reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007562info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Corruption and political institutions in Portugal: an exploratory analysis

Corruption, political cover-ups, and fraud in a general form have become a matter of political debate in the last few years in Portugal. It is not that corrupt politicians and government officials were not around before the 21st century and are only now abusing their public authority, but is it only now coming out in public and in a big way. After thirty years of democracy, Portuguese public misuse of power is apparently no longer tolerated for government officials suspected of fraud and corruption now are being formally charged. The literature on corruption and democracy indicate that this is a positive sign of progress in the democratic development of sound political institutions. Empirical studies are few and recent, but they generally tend to point to a negative effect of corruption on attitudes toward government. In Portugal, however, despite public knowledge of alleged events, citizens do not seem to assign any blame. In fact, perceptions of corruption and fraud do not always seem to affect citizens’ ropensity to trust in political institutions. Using surveys conducted by the Eurobarometer in Portugal, we explore the relationship between corruption and fraud and political trust in different political institutions. We find that this relationship varies depending upon the institution. Citizens with a greater perception and concern for corruption and fraud in general express lower levels of trust in government and in the justice system. Results also show that this relationship does not hold in the case of the parliament, political parties, and the police.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT