ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with one of the oldest theories of crime and delinquency: deterrence theory. A key assumption of this theory is that people, both young and old, make decisions about how to behave based on a rational calculation of its risks and rewards. This may sound simple, but deterrence involves a much more complex set of circumstances than one might think. Consider two U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the death penalty for those who commit capital crimes as juveniles – Stanford v. Kentucky (1989) and Roper v. Simmons (2005). The facts in Stanford and Roper are quite similar. An adolescent committed a murder, showed little or no remorse, there were aggravating circumstances (such as robbery, sexual assault, or kidnapping), and the trial court sentenced the convicted adolescent to death. 1
