Criminal Deterrence: Revisiting the Issue with a Birth Cohort

Abstract

In this paper, we estimate the general deterrent effect of criminal justice resources on criminal behavior. Our panel data, which combine individual-level information on arrests and personal characteristics with aggregate measures of criminal justice resources, allow us to obtain deterrence measures that more closely reflect theoretical concepts and are of potential policy relevance. We find robust evidence of a general deterrent effect in our estimates of error components probit and Tobit models.