Perceptual change in the national youth survey: lessons for deterrence theory and offender decision‐making

Abstract

Abstract Most deterrence research has investigated how perceptions about sanction threats influence decisions to offend. Far less scholarship has investigated the processes in which sanction threat perceptions are formed and modified. In this study, we advance and test a theoretical framework in which perceptions of the certainty of punishment are a function of the offending experiences and consequences of both the actor and others. Some of the empirical implications of this framework are tested with data from the National Youth Survey. The findings include: (1) Arrests had little effect on perceptions of the certainty of punishment for stealing and attacking; (2) In contrast, offending corresponded with decreases in the perceived certainty of punishment for both offenses; (3) Peer offending produced decreases in the perceived certainty for stealing, but not for attacking; (4) Prior offending experience did not diminish the influence of more immediate offending experience on risk perceptions; and (5) Moral inhibition reduced the effects of offending experience on risk perceptions. The implications are discussed for refining theories of offender decision‐making. Keywords: National Youth Surveydeterrenceperceptiondecision‐making Notes Greg Pogarsky is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany. His research focuses on refining models of offender decision‐making by revisiting their assumptions about human nature and by appealing to recent advancements on human decision‐making in economics and psychology. KiDeuk Kim is a doctoral student in the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany. His current research interests include rational choice theories, perceptions in the criminal justice system, and quantitative methodology. Ray Paternoster is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Maryland. His research interests include criminological theory, quantitative methods in criminology, and the death penalty. Correspondence to: Greg Pogarsky, School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, 135 Western Ave., Albany, NY 12222, USA. E‐mail: pogarsky@albany.edu Certainly, incapacitative effects are possible without perceptual change, but our focus here is on general and/or specific deterrence. Most are beyond the scope of this study. First, the denominator of the objective certainty measure only includes crimes "known to the police" and may, therefore, overestimate the objective certainty of punishment. Second, operationalizing "objective" certainty is beset by a number of conceptual challenges. It is unclear whether the objective certainty of punishment for an individual is the arrest or conviction rate in their state, county, city, or neighborhood. Using too large a geographic unit neglects the likelihood that individuals are probably most influenced by information in their more immediate surroundings. However, selecting a smaller geographic unit, such as the neighborhood or county, fails to account for offenders who commit crimes in areas they do not normally frequent. Conceptual difficulties also affect the determination of which, if any, personal characteristics should be considered in calculating the objective certainty level for a particular individual. It stands to reason that the apprehension probability should vary with the offender's age, ethnicity, gender, and even self‐control. The response options were: never, 1–2 times, 3–11 times, or 12 or more times. See Lochner (Citation2003) versus Paternoster and Piquero (Citation1995), and Bridges and Stone (Citation1986) versus Horney and Marshall (Citation1992). Fundamental differences between certainty perceptions, which are probabilistic, and severity and celerity perceptions, which are not, suggest the latter two perceptions warrant separate treatment. We note the existence of several contrary findings that risks and rewards indeed influence the decision‐making of active offenders (cf. Decker, Wright, & Logie, Citation1993; Piquero & Rengert, Citation1999). Brame and Paternoster (Citation2003) and Brame and Piquero (Citation2003) found that respondents who drop out of longitudinal studies disproportionately are high‐rate offenders. This is supported by the high sanction certainty estimates in the current study (an average of 60–70 percent). Thus, the ensuing analyses may underrepresent high‐rate offenders, and the findings should be interpreted with this caveat in mind. Without either the wholesale imputation of offending frequencies for 1984 and 1985 or a 30–40 percent loss of data, the NYS do not allow non‐dichotomous offending scales that cover the entire 3‐year period between waves 6 and 7. Later analyses partially test the implications of this methodological decision. The findings were fundamentally unchanged when the outlier was excluded. Initially, respondents were selected from among 76 geographic areas or "primary sampling units." The omitted reference category is "suburban." The analyses control for these "cluster characteristics" measured at wave 6. However, recognizing that these characteristics may change between waves 6 and 7, the ensuing analyses were replicated with controls for the identical cluster characteristics at waves 6 and 7, and the findings were unchanged. These coefficient comparison tests were based on the formula in Paternoster et al. (1998). These results are confirmed by two unreported regressions that retested the moderating effects of pre‐wave 6 offending experiences by including interaction terms of pre‐wave 6 offending with arrests, personal offending, and peer offending. Two regressions were estimated with these three interaction variables, which were all mean‐centered to reduce multicollinearity, one each for stealing and attacking. Of the six interaction terms, none were statistically significant, although for stealing, p = .12 for the negative interaction of pre‐wave 6 offending with both personal and peer offending. The negative sign for these interactions suggests that the relationship of personal and peer offending to perceived certainty may become more negative as pre‐wave 6 offending experience increases. All non‐dichotomous components of each interaction were mean‐centered.