http://euc.sagepub.com/Criminology European Journal of http://euc.sagepub.com/content/8/5/401 Theonline version of this article can be foun d at: DOI: 10.1177/1477370811416415 2011 8: 401 European Journal of CriminologyPer-Olof H. Wikström, Andromachi Tseloni and Dimitris Karlis Do people comply with the law beca use they fear getting caught? Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: European Society of Criminology can be found at: European Journal of CriminologyAdditional services and information for http://euc.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts:http://euc.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints:http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions: http://euc.sagepub.com/content/8/5/401.refs.html Citations:- Sep 14, 2011 Version of Record >>
Do people comply withthe law because theyfear getting caught?
Per-Olof H. WikströmUniversity of Cambridge, UK
Andromachi TseloniNottingham Trent University, UK
Dimitris KarlisAthens University of Economics and Business, Greece
AbstractDo people comply with the law because they fear the consequences? Guided by the theoreticalframework of Situational Action Theory we argue that most people abide by the law not becausethey fear the consequences but because they do not perceive crime as an ‘action alternative’.We propose that the potential influence of threats of punishment on people’s law abidance isspecific to those who regularly are motivated and consider committing acts of crime. Using datafrom the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+) we empiricallyexplore the relationships between crime propensity, deterrence perceptions and crimeinvolvement for four specific types of crime: shoplifting, theft from cars, vandalism and assault.The findings support the notion that the influence of deterrence perceptions on an individual’scrime involvement is dependent on his or her crime propensity. Moreover, and crucially, resultssuggest that deterrence perceptions are largely irrelevant for those who lack a propensity tocommit acts of crime (or specific acts of crime).
Keywordsadolescent crime, crime causation, crime propensity, deterrence, finite mixture Poisson models,Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+), situational actiontheory
Corresponding author:Per-Olof H. Wikström, Professor of Ecological and Developmental Criminology, Institute of Criminology,University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK.Email: [email protected]
Article
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A threat of punishment is one means to influence humans to act in certain desiredways through the creation of deterrence. Deterrence may be defined as ‘the felt worryabout or fear of consequences when considering breaching a moral rule or committing anact of crime’ and punishment may be defined as ‘the purposeful infliction by a third partyof negative consequences, such as rebuke, pain, financial loss or deprivation of freedom,motivated by and as a response to transgression of a moral rule’ (Wikström, 2007). Therole of the threat of punishment (the potential pain or costs it represents) in preventingcrime is thus to outweigh the potential pleasures or benefits in an individual’s decision-making about whether or not to commit a crime, and thereby cause him or her to refrainfrom committing an act of crime. For deterrence to influence human action effectively, itminimally requires that individuals’ (when considering an action that is unlawful) knowwhat is stated in the law and that they perceive the risk of getting caught as high (certainty)and the consequences of getting caught serious enough to instil worry or fear of the
consequences (severity). The key question is to what extent compliance with the law isinfluenced by fear of punishment? In other words, do people who abide by the law dothis because they fear the consequences?
Deterrence and the role of individual differencesResearch into the relationship between deterrence perceptions and crime involvementgenerally shows that there is a weak to moderate correlation between perceived risksof getting caught (certainty) and crime involvement, whereas the findings about the
relationship between perceived severity of punishment and crime involvement are lessconsistent (see, for example, Nagin, 1998; Paternoster, 1987; Pratt et al., 2006; VonHirsch et al., 1999).
Studies that have explored the role of individual differences in the relationship between sensitivity to deterrence and crime involvement generally report such differ-ences; the relevance of deterrence as a guide for action appears to vary betweenindividuals depending on their individual characteristics (for example, Nagin andPaternoster, 1994; Nagin and Pogarsky, 2003; Piquero and Tibbetts, 1996). The particu-lar individual characteristic that has mostly figured in this research is the individual’s
generalized ability to exercise self-control .2
For example, Nagin and Paternoster (1993:484) conclude from a scenario-based study that ‘persons low in self-control perceivethe rewards of crime as more valuable and the cost of crimes as less aversive, are lesslikely to feel the “pangs of conscience”, and are more likely to report that they wouldcommit crime than those with more self-control’.
Wright et al. (2004) used longitudinal data from the Dunedin study to explorewhether the influence of deterrence (general assessments of the risk of getting caughtand the severity of social sanctions 3) on crime involvement is dependent on an indi-vidual’s propensity to engage in crime. The measures of ‘propensity’ were measures of(generalized) self-control 4 and self-perceived criminality. 5 The authors state that their
particular interest concerns ‘self-control and how it conditions the effect of sanctionthreats’ (2004: 206) and they report that ‘the deterrent effect “getting caught” (that is,its negative effect) was greatest (that is, even more negative) among study members
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low in self-control and high in self-perceived criminality’ (2004: 198, our emphasis).This finding was repeated using ‘social sanctions’ as a measure of deterrence. 6
On theoretical grounds, it may appear implausible that the weaker an individual’sself-control the more he or she would be influenced by deterrent effects. Thus, this find-ing, at first sight, appears contrary to what would be expected. If one, however, makesthe assumption that deterrence is relevant for actors’ crime involvement only to theextent that they consider breaching the law, and further assumes that there is a negativecorrelation between an individual’s level of generalized self-control (self-perceivedcriminality 7) and his or her likelihood to consider committing acts of crime, the pre-sented relationships are just what would be expected. 8 In other words, the findings maymerely reflect the fact that the relevance of deterrence as a factor influencing offendingis strongest for those who are most likely to consider committing acts of crime (andirrelevant for those who are unlikely to consider breaching the law). This interpretation
is also close to the one at which Wright et al. (2004) finally arrive in their concludingdiscussion, ‘when other inhibitions are strong (such as those provided by one’s moral
beliefs), the deterrent effects of sanction threats are irrelevant’ (2004: 206). It should,however, be stressed that this is an interpretation because the effect of any ‘other inhibitors’was not explored in their study. 9
A recent German study (Kroneberg et al., 2010) of the role of moral norms andinstrumental incentives in tax fraud and shoplifting in an adult population reports find-ings that are of particular interest in this context. The authors conclude, for example,that ‘only respondents who do not feel bound by strongly internalized norms consider
instrumental incentives’ (2010: 283) such as costs and benefits.
The role of deterrence in situational action theoryThe focal point of situational action theory (Wikström, 2006, 2010, 2011; Wikströmand Treiber, 2007) is the idea that human action is fundamentally an outcome of (i) how
people perceive their action alternatives, and (ii) how they make their choices. This perception–choice process is viewed as the situational mechanism that links an indi-vidual’s characteristics and the environmental features of the setting in which he or she
operates to their actions (see, further, Wikström, 2010). Hence individual and environ-mental factors that through their interaction directly influence how individuals perceivetheir action alternatives and make their choices (habitually or by deliberation) are the(direct) causes of their actions (including acts of crime).
The theory proposes that an individual’s moral rules and habits (and associated moralemotions) 10 are the key individual characteristics that influence his or her perception ofaction alternatives, and an individual’s ability to exercise self-control 11 is a key individ-ual factor in his or her process of choice between perceived action alternatives, but onlywhen there is a conflict of rule-guidance between a person’s own moral rules and themoral norms by the moral context in which he or she takes part (see, further, Wikström,2010, 2011). The theory conceptualizes crime as an act of breaching a moral rule ofconduct stated in law. The extent to which an individual tends to see crime as an actionalternative is the extent to which he or she has a high crime propensity. 12
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However, an individual’s actions are dependent not only on his or her individualcharacteristics and experiences but also on the features of the environment in which heor she operates. The theory proposes that the most important aspect of the environmentis its moral context (that is, the moral norms that apply to a setting – for example, aschool yard, a city centre entertainment district, a neighbourhood park – and their levelsof monitoring and enforcement 13). It is in a particular moral context that an individualfaces certain opportunities (which may create temptations) and frictions (which maycreate provocation) and it is the interaction between an individual’s moral rules andhabits (and in some circumstances also his or her ability to exercise self-control) and themoral context of the setting that will determine whether experienced temptations or
provocations will materialize (habitually or after some deliberation) in certain types ofactions (including acts of crime).
Individual and environmental factors that affect (i) the development of individuals’
moral rules and moral habits (and their associated moral emotions) and their ability toexercise self-control 14 (see, further, Wikström, 2005; Wikström and Treiber, 2009) and(ii) the social conditions that are responsible for the emergence, nature and social dis-tribution of different kinds of moral contexts and their changes (see, further, Wikström,2011, but also Wikström and Sampson, 2003) may, according to the theory, be regardedas ‘causes of the causes’. Common aspects of the explanation of crime, such as inequal-ity and segregation, are thus considered to be not possible causes of crime but potentialcauses of the causes. This implies that to understand the role of developmental andsocial mechanisms in crime causation (the problem of the causes of the causes) one first
has to understand the situational mechanisms (the problem of the causes). That is because, without properly understanding what causes acts of crime, one can obviouslynot understand what causes the causes of acts of crime (see, further, Wikström, 2011).
In the situational action theory, deterrence (worry or fear of consequences) comesinto play as part of the factors that influence individuals’ action choices when (but onlywhen) they consider committing an act of crime, and deterrence experiences are seen as
part of an individual’s moral education of relevance to his or her development of a crime propensity and sensitivities to threats of punishment. Deterrence experiences refer to anindividual’s cumulative experiences of his or her own, and his or her observations of
others’, encounters with threat of punishment and punishments.15
It is analytically veryimportant to distinguish between the role of deterrence experiences in propensity forma-tion and the role of deterrence in guiding action. This paper is concerned with the roleof deterrence and therefore we will not say much more about the role of deterrenceexperiences as part of an individual’s moral education and its relevance for an individu-al’s development of a crime propensity (see, further, Wikström, 2007).
Effective deterrence may be viewed as a situational mechanism (the creation of feel-ings of worry or fear) that links perceived threats of punishment (cause) to a decision toabide by the law (effect) when the individual is considering committing an act of crime.The theory proposes that deterrence as a factor influencing human action is relevant onlywhen an individual deliberates over action alternatives that involve committing an act ofcrime. This implies that, for those who do not see crime as an action alternative (or abide
by the law out of habit), deterrence is irrelevant as a factor influencing their law abid-ance. It further implies that deterrence is an irrelevant factor when people commit acts of
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specific types of crime (crime propensity) and their estimated risk of getting caught ifcommitting these specific crimes (deterrence perceptions).
The questions in the study on self-reported criminality refer to 10 different types ofcrime, but only four of those are included for this study:
1. Have you in the last year (year 2005) stolen anything from a shop (for example,a CD, clothes, cosmetics or any other things)?
2. Have you in the last year (year 2005) broken into a car to steal something ?3. Have you in the last year (year 2005) for fun or because you were bored or
angry damaged or destroyed things not belonging to you (for example, smashedwindows or street lights, scratched the paint of cars, sprayed graffiti on a wall,damaged a bicycle)?
4. Not counting events when you took money or other things from someone, have
you in the last year (year 2005) beaten up or hit someone (for example, punched,stabbed, kicked or headbutted someone). Do not count fights with your brothersor sisters.
For each crime question the subjects were asked whether they had committed the crimein question and, if so, how many times they had committed the crime. For this study wewill use the frequency of crime measure. This measure has been truncated so all report-ing crimes above 15 have been counted as 15. The percentage of subjects reporting 15 ormore crimes was 1.7 percent for shoplifting, 0.1 percent for thefts from cars, 1.5 percent
for vandalism and 2.0 percent for assault.The questions about the subjects’ propensity to commit certain crimes were intro-duced in the following way:
‘Sometimes people think about doing things without necessarily doing them. We would like toask you a few questions about whether you have thought about doing certain things. When youanswer remember that it does not matter if you actually did or did not do things we ask about,we just want to know if you were tempted or not to do them.’
Two questions about crime propensity (temptation) were put to the subjects: (A) Howoften do you feel tempted to . . . (the response categories were ‘never’, ‘sometimes’,‘often’ and ‘very often’) and (B) When was the last time you felt tempted to . . . (theresponse categories were ‘last week’, ‘last month’, ‘last year’, ‘more than a year ago’and ‘have never felt tempted’). Each question was asked for four specific types of crime:(1) stealing from a shop, (2) breaking into a car to steal something, (3) destroying ordamaging something not belonging to you, and (4) hitting someone who annoys you orwho makes you angry. The correlation between the two measures is high (shoplifting,r = .80; theft from car, r = .75; vandalism, r = .63; assault, r = .57) and for this study wewill use the latter of the two measures (that is, when was the last time you felt tempted),
coded as 4 (last week) to 0 (never) for the statistical analyses. The assumption is that amore recent temptation will reflect a higher propensity because those who are regularlytempted are more likely to display a recent temptation. The fact that there is a strongcorrelation between the two different measures of propensity may lend some support to
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The relationship between crime propensity and actual offending The crime that most subjects are tempted to commit is also the crime that most subjectshave committed (assault – 28 percent), and the crime that the subjects are least temptedto commit is also the crime that least subjects have actually committed (thefts fromcars – 3 percent).
The findings of the study show (as expected) that there is a rather strong correlation between being tempted to commit a particular act of crime and the frequency of actually
committing that crime (Table 2).18
However, the majority of people who claimed thatthey had been tempted at least once any time during the last year 19 did not actuallycommit the crime in question (during the last year), showing that there is far from anyone-to-one relationship between being tempted and acting on temptations, and thereforethat there is room for other factors (such as deterrence sensitivity) to explain why atemptation materializes into action or not. The percentage who reported being temptedat least once during last year and also committed the crime in question during last yearwas 41 percent for shoplifting, 30 percent for theft from cars, 46 percent for acts ofvandalism and 35 percent for assaults.
Deterrence perception: Assessments of the risk of getting caughtThe findings show that the subjects overall tend to assess the risk of getting caught high-est if committing theft from a car and lowest if committing an act of vandalism (Table 3).
Table 1. Crime propensity: Sample percentages
Last time tempted to … Crime
Shoplifting Theft from cars Vandalism Assault
Never 57 91 56 13More than a year ago 15 4 13 7Within last year 9 2 10 12Within last month 10 2 12 25Within last week 9 1 9 43 100 100 100 100
Note: ‘Within last month’ excludes those tempted within last week, ‘within last year’ excludes those temptedwithin last month, etc.
Table 2. Zero-order correlations betweentemptation and actual crimes
Crime r
Shoplifting .49**Theft from cars .41**Vandalism .41**Assault .28**
**significant at .01 level or better.
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It is of particular interest to note that the subjects more often assess the risk of gettingcaught as higher for shoplifting than for vandalism (for example, the situational cues of
relevance to deterrence may generally be stronger in circumstances in which people aretempted to commit shoplifting than in circumstances in which they are tempted to van-dalize something).
It is also of interest to note that the subjects more often assess the risk of getting caughtas higher for thefts from cars than for assault. In cases of assault there is always a witness(the victim) who has the possibility (if not killed) to report the offender, so this must implythat the subjects in many cases assess that a victim generally would be unwilling to reportthe crime to the police or tell someone who would report it (recall that the instructionsgiven to the subjects when answering these questions was that we defined the risk of being
caught as ‘the risk that someone finds out you have committed the crime and reports it tothe police’). This finding may be particular to young people and a consequences of thecommon circumstances in which they get involved in violence (for example, fights inschool yards). It may very well be the case that older assault offenders (perhaps with theexception of violence occurring in domestic circumstances) assess the risk of someonereporting the violence (and hence the risk of getting caught) to be generally higher than doyoung assault offenders (although we lack data to explore whether that is the case).
The general assessment of the risk of being caught may be conceptualized as an aspectof an individual’s generalized deterrence perception . The relationship between subjects’
deterrence perception (sensitivity) and their crime involvement is generally in theexpected direction but rather weak (Table 4). However, we believe that this findingunderestimates the role of deterrence sensitivities for active offenders because the calcu-lation of the relationship includes those who never or rarely consider committing or havecommitted an act of crime (the specific type of crime).
The next step of the analyses is therefore to explore the interaction effects betweencrime propensity (temptation) and deterrence perception (the assessed risk of gettingcaught) for the prediction of crime involvement.
The interaction between crime propensity and deterrence perception(sensitivity) in predicting crime involvementThe interaction effect between crime propensity and deterrence perception is presentfor all four types of crime, but is much stronger for the more instrumental crimes of
Table 3. Assessment of the general risk of getting caught if committing a particular crime:Sample percentages
Risk Crime
Shoplifting Theft from cars Vandalism Assault
No risk at all 2 2 9 5A little risk 33 10 48 24A great risk 45 36 31 39A very great risk 20 52 12 32
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shoplifting and thefts from cars than for the more expressive crimes of assault and van-dalism (Table 5). This may reflect that subjects more often assess situations rationally(for example, take deterrence into consideration) when committing shoplifting and theftsfrom cars than when attacking another person or committing an act of vandalism.
Crimes such as assault and vandalism are more often likely to involve higher levels ofemotion and stress, which generally do not promote rational deliberation. In circum-stances of high emotion and stress, habitual reactions are likely to be more common (seeWikström and Treiber, 2007). These are also types of crime in which the offender moreoften is under the influence of alcohol (or other drugs with similar effects) and therefore
Table 4. Zero-order correlations between generalassessments of risk of getting caught and self-reported offending
may be less likely to consider the future consequences of his or her actions (for example,the risk of getting caught). 20
An interesting question in this context is why people who display higher levels oftemptation vary in their assessment of the risk of getting caught? We have no data toexplore the reason for this variation but some previous research indicates that this (atleast partially) may have to do with their previous successes and failures in committingacts of crime without getting caught. Horney and Marshall (1992: 589) report from theirtime-calendar study of convicted males that ‘the data suggest, at least for certain crimes,that perceptions are formed in a rational manner, that is, the likelihood of arrest is judgedon the basis of how many times a person has been able to commit the crime without
being arrested’. They further showed that those offenders who assessed the risk of arrest
as higher tended to commit less crime (1992: 582).To illustrate the nature of the interactions, a comparison of the regression coefficientsfor the effect of deterrence sensitivity on crime frequency by level of crime propensitywas conducted (Table 6). 21 For all types of crime, 22 the (negative) effect of deterrencesensitivity on crime frequency is lowest for those with the weakest crime propensity andhighest for those with the strongest crime propensity. The findings thus support thenotion that the influence of deterrence perception on crime involvement is dependent on(interacts with) crime propensity: the (negative) influence of deterrence perception onfrequency of crime involvement is stronger for those with a higher crime propensity.
Analysing count variables with highly skewed distributionsSo far we have demonstrated that there are significant variations in young people’scrime propensity and sensitivity to deterrence (Tables 1 and 3). We have also demon-strated that there is a positive relationship (but far from any one-to-one relationship)
between crime propensity and crime commission (Table 2) and a rather weak negativerelationship between deterrence perception and crime commission (Table 4). Wehave further demonstrated by OLS regression that there is an interaction effect betweencrime propensity and deterrence perception in influencing crime outcomes (Table 5),and that deterrence sensitivity appears irrelevant for those with low crime propensity butaffects the frequency of crime involvement (negatively) for those with higher crime
propensities (Table 6). All these findings support our theoretical assumptions.We will now present some further tests of our key assumptions using statistical
techniques especially developed for the analysis of count variables with highly skewed
Table 6. Regression coefficients (unstandardized) for the effect of deterrence perception onfrequency of crime by level of crime propensity (for each type of crime)
distributions, such as the number of self-reported crimes – the key dependent variable inour study. A number of different statistical specifications are technically appropriate formodelling count variables with highly skewed distributions (McCullagh and Nelder,1989) and have been fitted to our data for initial model selection (results available fromthe second author, Tseloni). The most appropriate model for testing our substantiveresearch questions, however, is the ‘Wang model’ (Wang et al., 1998) and was alsosuggested in the preliminary model selection analysis.
The point of departure for the analyses is that we fundamentally have two groups ofindividuals, those who are crime prone (that is, on a regular basis see crime as an actionalternative) and those who are crime averse (that is, rarely or never see crime as an actionalternative). Individuals’ aversion to break the law may vary for different types of crime(that is, may be crime specific). For example, some individuals may consider shoplifting
but never car theft. The role of deterrence perception may also vary by crime type accord-
ing to the assessed risk of getting caught. We therefore test the hypothesis about the role played by deterrence perception for law abidance for specific types of crime. In otherwords, the hypothesis we test refers to whether an individual who is prone to commit a
particular crime is influenced in his or her level of crime activities by his or her percep-tion of the risk of getting caught if committing that particular crime.
Crime-averse individuals’ are not expected to commit acts of crime. In statisticalterms they have zero expected or latent propensities to commit crime. This is not thesame, however, as assuming that a crime-averse youth has never committed or will nevercommit a crime. The observed offending rate of this group may indeed differ from zero.
The argument is only that, in normal circumstances, they will abide by the law (do notsee a particular crime as an action alternative), although there may be special (or extreme)circumstances in which some of them may occasionally breach the law.
The crime-prone group, that is those who with some regularity consider breaking thelaw, has a greater than zero expected crime rate or latent propensity to offend. This is notclaiming that each individual from the crime-prone group has to have offended during the
period studied. Situational action theory purports that crime is an outcome of the interac-tion of an individual’s crime propensity and his or her exposure to criminogenic behavioursettings. Some of the adolescents may, for example, have been subjected to very strong
parental monitoring and controls, preventing them from exposure to criminogenic set-tings. Thus their observed crime count may well be zero. However, we expect generally tofind that perceptions of the risk of getting caught (deterrence sensitivity) will influence thelevel of crime involvement for the crime-prone group of individuals.
Our original research hypotheses – that people vary in their crime propensity (for thisanalysis dichotomized as crime proneness and crime aversion) and that only crime-prone
people are affected by deterrence sensitivities – are implicated in the finite mixturePoisson with logit mixing probabilities model (Wang et al., 1998). 23
Are there crime-averse young people? The first question to address is whether we are justified in assuming the existence ofcrime-averse young people (that is, young people who do not see particular types ofcrime as an action alternative and therefore do not commit these crimes). Table 7
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presents the annual probabilities of committing specific acts of crime by level of crime
propensity (temptations) as estimated by Wang models for shoplifting, theft from cars,vandalism and assault. The findings confirm the hypothesis that the stronger the crime
propensity the higher the estimated probability that the young person will commit an actof crime.
The only deviation from the general pattern is that the probability to engage in an actof theft from a car is lower for those with the highest propensity (tempted last week) thanfor those with the next-highest level of propensity (tempted last month). It is likely thatthis oddity is owing to the very small number having been tempted to commit a theftfrom a car last week. The analysis, crucially, also demonstrates that, for those with the
lowest crime propensity, their probability of engaging in acts of crime is in effect zero.In other words, the analysis supports the existence of crime-averse young people.
Is deterrence sensitivity irrelevant for crime-averse young people but effectivein reducing the level of crime involvement for crime-prone young people? The next question is whether deterrence perception (the assessed risk of getting caught)is irrelevant for those who are crime averse but reduces the level of crime involvementfor those who are crime prone. Figures 2 to 5 display the effects of deterrence perception
on the number of offences that crime-averse and crime-prone young people are expectedto commit. The proposed hypothesis that deterrence perception (sensitivity) is relevantonly for crime-prone individuals and has little relevance for offending by crime-averseindividuals is largely validated across all crime types. Figures 2 to 5, which give the
predicted number of crime-specific events for each group of youths across levels ofdeterrence perception for the respective crime type based on the estimated parameters ofthis analysis, illustrate the validity of our theoretical assertions.
The findings show clearly (for all four types of crime) that for the crime-averse groupof young people their deterrence perception has little or no effect on their frequency of
crime involvement. These results are highly consistent with the predictions based onsituational action theory and the earlier OLS analysis findings (see Tables 5 and 6 above).As regards the importance of deterrence perception for the frequency of crime in the
crime-prone group, the findings show that the higher the deterrence sensitivity the less
Table 7. Crime-specific annual estimated probabilities of committing an act of crime by level ofcrime propensity
Crime propensity Crime
Shoplifting Theft from cars Vandalism Assault
Tempted:More than a year ago/never .003 .014 .004 .001Last year .116 .173 .268 .001Last month .271 .562 .413 .087Last week .522 .191 .504 .251
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likely crime-prone young people are to commit thefts from cars and acts of vandalism(see Figures 3 and 4, respectively). The findings for assault are largely in line with theo-retical expectations: the estimated frequency of crime drops by increasing deterrence
sensitivity with the exception of the final category, for which it increases (compared withthe previous category), giving this relationship a somewhat curvilinear shape (Figure 5),which may be justified by the expressive nature of this crime. The category of crime thathas the greatest deviation from theoretical expectations is shoplifting, where only thosewith the highest deterrence sensitivity show a lower crime frequency (although this
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Figure 2. Estimated frequency of shoplifting and deterrence perception by propensity
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Figure 3. Estimated frequency of thefts of/from cars and deterrence perception by propensity
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difference is statistically non-significant; Figure 2). In a nutshell, the estimated Wangmodel results are fully consistent with theoretical predictions (and the earlier OLSanalyses) as regards theft from cars and vandalism, are largely consistent for assault, butare theoretically unexpected for shoplifting.
In this context it should be noted that, in contrast to the previously presented OLSanalyses, the estimated Wang model assumes for parsimony only two categories of young
people – crime prone and crime averse – and does not take into account variation incrime propensity within the crime-prone group. It is therefore a possibility that the less
clear (negative) relationship between deterrence sensitivity and frequency of crime forshoplifting masks variation in this relationship within the crime-prone group. Another
possible contributing factor may be that the perceived potential consequences if caughtfor shoplifting may be regarded as too mild to affect behaviour regardless of the per-ceived risk of getting caught (we did not consider this aspect of deterrence in our study).
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Figure 5. Estimated frequency of assaults and deterrence perception by propensity
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Figure 4. Estimated frequency of vandalism and deterrence perception by propensity
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ConclusionOur findings support the assumption derived from situational action theory that oneimportant reason many people do not engage in acts of crime (particular types of crime)
is that they do not see crime (a particular crime) as an action alternative, rather than thatthey abstain from it because they fear the consequences (their assessment of the risk ofgetting caught). People who do not see crime as an action alternative do not tend toengage in crime regardless of whether they assess the risk of getting caught as very highor very low. Our findings also indicate that, amongst those who more regularly see crime(a particular crime) as an action alternative, their crime involvement is generally influ-enced by their assessment of the risk of getting caught (their deterrence sensitivity): thosewho assess the risk of getting caught as higher tend to commit crime less frequently.
NotesThis paper was first presented at the 2008 European Society of Criminology conference inEdinburgh and subsequently at the 2008 American Society of Criminology conference in St Louis.
1. ‘Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure . It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as determine what weshall do’ (Bentham, 1970: 11).
2. We suggest that the term ‘generalized ability to exercise self-control’ better describes what isactually measured in these studies than the term ‘self-control’ (used by the authors), becauseself-control is best treated as a situational concept (Wikström and Treiber, 2007) whereasthe measure used in these studies predominantly asks the subjects to report on their (non-setting-specific) general tendencies to be impulsive or discounting the future (for example inanswering questions such as ‘I base my decisions on what will happen to me in the short runrather than in the long run’ or ‘I act on the spur of the moment without stopping to think’).
3. Social sanctions were measured as anticipated negative reactions from significant others andassessed the risk of negative influences on future job prospects and finding ‘an ideal partner’.
No measure of the general assessment of the risk of legal threats of punishment was includedin the study.
4. Wright et al. (2004) use two very complex measures of generalized self-control, summarizingmany different scales, measured at many different ages. For example, the measure of child-hood self-control summarizes ‘167 separate measurement items’ (p. 191) and the measure ofadolescent self-control summarizes ‘76 measurement items’ (p. 192). We would argue that theability to exercise self-control is a factor that may influence an individual’s crime propensityrather than being a measure of crime propensity.
5. Self-perceived criminality is a measure in which the subjects are asked to evaluate their ownlevel of criminality compared with that of most people their age. Whether or not this is a goodmeasure of propensity is highly arguable.
6. Apart from a significant interaction term, Wright et al. also show that the negative relation-ship with the assessments of the risk of getting caught (severity of social sanctions) gradu-ally decreases in magnitude when analysed by five categories of generalized self-controlranging from ‘very low self-control’ to ‘very high self-control’. For the last category (‘veryhigh self-control’) the relationship is non-significant.
7. In this case, a positive correlation with the likelihood of considering committing acts of crime. 8. The interpretation of the findings is complicated by the fact that there are no separate measures
of ‘capability to exercise self-control’ and ‘propensity to consider engaging in acts of crime’,
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20. Although for this age group the role of intoxication (although still important) is probably lessthan for older offenders because a lot of their assaults and acts of vandalism take place in theschool environment in which one has to assume that they generally are sober (see Wikströmand Butterworth, 2006).
21. High propensity was defined as one standard deviation or more above the mean, and low propensity was defined as one standard deviation or less below the mean.
22. With the exceptions of vandalism, where the effect is the same for the medium- and high- propensity groups, and shoplifting, where the effects are marginally (but insignificantly)lower for the medium- than for the low-propensity group.
23. The technical description of this method and its application to our data was originally includedin an annex but it had to be omitted owing to space limitations; it is available from the secondauthor (Tseloni) upon request.
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