Arrested Development

• Author: Sean Patrick Roche,Justin T. Pickett
• Published date: 01 August 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12217
• Date: 01 August 2016

RESEARCH ARTICLE

DIRECTIONS IN DETERRENCE THEORY

AND POLICY

Arrested Development

Misguided Directions in Deterrence Theory and Policy

Justin T.Pickett

Sean Patrick Roche

University at Albany, SUNY

Research Summary

Deterrence theory assumes that objective and subjective sanction risk are positively

related. If this assumption holds true, then the theory is useful for guiding criminal

justice policy and practice. However, prior research has failed to support the assumption.

Prominent review articles have dismissed this literature on the basis of methodological

critiques, and they have presented certain requirements for future deterrence research

to be considered credible. Informed by these reviews, Nagin, Solow, and Lum’s (NSL,

2015) new deterrence theory of policing rests on the assumption of a strong positive

relationship between objective and subjective sanction risk. NSL have asserted that

their theory has significant policy implications; indeed, they have contended it reveals

a need to alter American policing fundamentally. We elaborate why the critiques of

the discredited literature are premature, and we suggest that the plausibility of NSL’s

theory is called into question by this literature, as well as by other logical inconsistencies.

We conclude by emphasizing how much remains unknown about sanction perception

updating, hot spots policing, and heuristics and biases in offender decision making.

Policy Implications

Our central argument is that NSL’s (2015) policy recommendations are premature

given that their theoretical model is inconsistent with existing evidence. Pending a

better understanding of sanction perceptions, we suggest putting aside dictates for how

The authors thank Shawn Bushway and Gary Kleck for helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

Direct correspondence to Justin T. Pickett, School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, SUNY, 135 Western

Avenue, Albany, NY 12222 (e-mail: jpickett@albany.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12217 C2016 American Society of Criminology 727

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 15 rIssue 3

Research Article Directions in Deterrence Theory and Policy

police should best deter offenders and about what constitutes credible deterrenceresearch.

Rather,both policy makers and researchers should prioritize efforts to identify the sources

of sanction perceptions, while taking seriously the possibility that such perceptions may,

in part, be intuitive judgments influenced by well-known cognitive heuristics.

Keywords

Policing, rational choice, sanction perceptions, perceived risk, decision making

Deterrence and rational choice theories of crime, and all social control efforts

informed by this theoretical tradition, are premised on two crucial assumptions.

The first assumption is that individuals weigh the perceived costs and benefits

of crime before offending, and then they choose to offend after calculating a net benefit

of crime. The second is that there is a correlation between the actual (or the objective)

risk of apprehension and punishment and individuals’ subjective beliefs about the risk of

apprehension and punishment. Nagin (1998: 5) stressed the policy importance of this

second assumption: “[T]he conclusion that crime decisions are affected by sanction risk

perceptions is not a sufficient condition for concluding that policy can deter crime. Unless

the perceptions themselves are manipulable by policy, the desired deterrent effect will not be

achieved” (emphasis added).

Several prior studies have tested deterrence theory’s second assumption, and none have

found any evidence that objective and subjective sanction risk are related (Kleck and Barnes,

2013, 2014; Kleck, Sever, Li, and Gertz, 2005; Lochner, 2007). Paternoster (2010: 804–

805) explained that this is “one of the ‘dirty little secrets’ of deterrence.” Logically, the

next step for deterrence scholars should be to reconsider the theoretical conceptualization

of sanction perceptions and to focus theoretical and empirical attention on identifying

potential alternative sources of such perceptions (Pickett and Bushway, 2015). Instead, a

series of prominent review articles by Apel and Nagin dismissed these null findings on the

basis of questionable methodological critiques (Apel, 2013; Apel and Nagin, 2011; Nagin,

2013a, 2013b). We suggest that such a dismissal is premature.

The methodological critiques outlined in recent reviews of the deterrence literature have

erected barriers to testing deterrence theory, and they havelegitimized additional theorizing

and policy making that takes the validity of deterrence theory’s second assumption for

granted. The reviews have basically suggested that because of said flaws in prior studies,

we can ignore their findings and safely assume that, as postulated by deterrence theory,

law enforcement activities exert a causal effect on individuals’ sanction perceptions. Nagin,

Solow, and Lum (NSL) (2015) recently put forward a new policy theory of deterrence that

is informed by these reviews and rests on this assumption. They stated that their theory

“has broad implications for crime prevention” (p. 92), suggests “a fundamental shift must

occur in the way police operate” (pp. 93–94), and “provides the basis for analyzing the

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