Sanction Sensitivity - A Theory of Specific Deterrence of Delinquency

• NCJ Number: 88427
• Author(s): M W Klein; S A Mednick
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 16 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Toronto, November 1982

Annotation

This paper proposes a conceptual scheme about juvenile responses to initial police sanctions.

Abstract

Juveniles respond to their first police encounter as a function of three streams of variables: characteristics of the juvenile, called sanction sensitivity, that relate directly to police sanctions; etiological factors and police contacts helping to produce the first arrest encounters; and variables affecting police arrest and disposition decisions. The theory concentrates on sanction sensitivity and police decisions. The paper posits two forms of sanction sensitivity, which in turn predict different intervening processes and lead alternatively to inhibition and generation of further delinquency and arrests. The two forms of sanction sensitivity are inhibitory (a function of variables often identified in deterrence research) and generative (a function of variables often identified in labeling theory). Arrow charts and a path diagram illustrate the means by which these two patterns yield differential responses to first arrest encounters and thus to decreased and increased recidivism. (Author abstract modified)