Deterrence and the Criminal Justice System - An Instrumental Analysis

• NCJ Number: 80106
• Journal: Journal of Police Science and Administration Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1981) Pages: 327-334
• Author(s): S H Decker; C F Wellford
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 8 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Statistics
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examines the deterrent effect of criminal justice system variables for two crime rates -- uniform crime reports and victimization data, assuming a negative relationship between measures of crime and social control variables to represent a deterrent effect.

Abstract

The social control variables used were police, legal, and correctional personnel and expenditures. When a correlational analysis was performed, all the social control variables were negatively related to crime rates. This indicated a direct deterrent effect of the criminal justice system. The deterrent effect was stronger for survey rates of crime than for the official rate. Police variables were the most strongly related category to unofficial measures of crime (victimization data and adjusted crime rate), but they were least related to official measures. The correctional variables showed the second highest correlations with all three measures of crime. There were no notable differences between the personnel and expenditure variables within categories, suggesting that such measures of social control tend to be highly interrelated. A more specific analysis of the issue was performed through multiple regression using additional demographic, economic, and disorganizational variables, whose effect on crime rates was made empirically distinct from those of social control. A regression model was examined for each of the measures of crime; it was found that social control variables made a contribution to both models. The impact of the measure of social control personnel on the survey rate of crime was most important. As a figure that is independent of reported crime, the survey rate of crime represents a more complete measure of crime and enables more meaningful interpretation of deterrent effects. This study suggests that, as an instrumental agency, the criminal justice system does exert a deterrent effect and that conclusions about the inability of the system to deal successfully with crime are not fully supported. Tabular data, footnotes, and 34 references are given.