NCJ Number
141958
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1992) Pages: 379-392
Date Published
1992
Length
14 pages
Annotation
Adult offenders who were arrested for a felony, a misdemeanor, or a serious traffic offense were interviewed to test the hypothesis that the effect of a person's prior behavior on perceptions of the certainty of punishment is conditioned by the extent of previous experience with the criminal justice system.
Abstract
The 157 offenders were all arrested during a 2-week period in 1981 by the police department of a mid-sized western city. The interviews gathered information about their alleged offense, history of prior offending, and prior criminal justice system experience, as well as their perceptions of the probabilities of arrest, conviction, and imprisonment for committing offenses. Results confirmed earlier research indicating that persons who violate the law subsequently lower their estimate of the risk involved, but indicated that this effect may exist only for those who also have an extensive history of being sanctioned by the criminal justice system. This result runs counter to the deterrence hypothesis, according to which deterrence is understood to be based on a system of information transmission. However, these results indicated that the experience of arrest and conviction lowered individuals' perceptions of risk. Results suggested that the failure of the criminal justice system to convey its intended threat may help explain the high recidivism rates among adult offenders. However, these findings are preliminary, and further research should try to replicate them. Tables, footnotes, and 21 references