Analysis suggests threat of punishment less effective at deterring crime

Analysis of several long-term studies reveals new insights into the factors that shape convicted offenders’ decision-making and the influences that can drive fluctuations in crime rates.

Preliminary results suggest that early contact with the justice system tends to drive future delinquent behavior rather than reduce it.

J.C. Barnes, director of the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati and a prominent figure in the bio-social aspect of criminology, recently presented the findings of his research centered on perceptual deterrence at Penn State’s Fall 2024 Criminology Speaker Series.

He described his paper, “Using Risk of Crime Detection to Study Change in Mechanisms of Decision-Making” as a thread of an idea pursued over the past 10 years. His analysis combined two longitudinal studies with high retention rates of participants over decades and explores how perceptions form early in life and how they change over time.

Barnes outlined two main questions: first, how contact with the criminal justice system impacts youth misbehavior; and second, whether that contact changes perceptions of risk – and attempting to make a connection between the two. He noted this was a rare instance in criminology where the contrasting predictions of deterrence and labeling theories were directly compared.

The deterrence theory suggests that contact with the criminal justice system should reduce the likelihood of future criminal behavior, while the labeling theory argues the opposite — that it increases it.

The Dunedin Study in New Zealand focuses on deterrence theory, or the perceived risks of being caught or punished. Researchers began collecting data in 1972 on participants who were 18 years of age at the time. Nine hundred of the original 1,000 participants are still involved.

Participants were asked to rate their perceived likelihood of getting caught if they committed various crimes such as shoplifting, car theft, burglary, fraud, marijuana use, assault, DUI and domestic violence.

The study also examined participants’ views on the impact of their convictions on their personal relationships.

Conviction data was collected up to age 38. Additionally, researchers included an aggregated measure of childhood socioeconomic status – covering the first 15 years of life – as a control variable, along with peer delinquency and self-perception.

The E-Risk Study, conducted in the United Kingdom, follows a cohort of 1,000 pairs of twins from age 18 who are now in their thirties. It focuses on labeling theory, which examines how being labeled as a criminal by the justice system can influence future behavior. 

This model examined the impact of early contact with the criminal justice system on subsequent deviant behavior. It compared differences in behavior between twins within the same family, focusing on how an arrest affected one twin compared to their sibling. 

Barnes noted that the experiential hypothesis suggests getting in trouble could lead to adjusting your perceptions of risk.

“Either increasing it, thinking you’re more likely to get caught, or decreasing it, as in the ‘gambler’s fallacy,’ thinking they’re less likely to be caught again,” he said.

However, using various methods of analysis, researchers found the results consistently supported the labeling theory over deterrence, suggesting that the twin encountering the criminal justice system was more likely to engage in deviant behavior later.

While Barnes noted there is still much to learn, overall, he found:

• Contact with the criminal justice system at a young age made future crime more likely, which is more consistent with labeling theory.
• People tend to hold a general baseline perception of risk, rather than unique perceptions for different crime types.
• There was only a slight increase in risk perception as people aged, suggesting adolescent peak in crime is not simply attributable to youth ignorance.
• There was some evidence that people update their perceptions of risk when life circumstances change, or with perceived costs to relationships.
• The two studies offer conflicting conclusions on risk perception, but after comparing them, Barnes noticed the effect of conviction on risk perception shifted over time.

At age 18, risk perception was negative, turned positive by age 21, strengthened by 26, and remained stable through age 38.

While not statistically significant, Barnes thinks this lends some credence to the fact there could be a variation that can influence the first two decades of life.

“What we still don’t know is where these perceptions actually come from,” he said. “And so, I took this as at least a little glimmer of hope. If we could figure out exactly what it is that can move the needle on these things, we might actually still be able to affect it with policy or changes in the system.”