ABSTRACT
According to deterrence theory, variation in individual offending is related to variation in perceived arrest risk, so that as the subjective probability of getting caught for offending increases, the likelihood or rate of offending should decrease. This straightforward idea largely underlies criminal justice policy in the United States, and deterrence remains one of the foremost perspectives in criminology. Nevertheless, skepticism about the theoretical and practical meaning of a risk-crime relationship remains, calling into question the efficacy of deterrence-based policies. In this chapter, we attempt to refocus attention on the mechanisms underlying the formation and maintenance of sanction risk perceptions. Our central argument is that people are generally responsive to sanction threats, and the individual and contextual sources of these threats offer important avenues for manipulating sanction risk perceptions to reduce crime.
