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GENERAL DETERRENCE
Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2011, Specific Deterrence, General
Deterrence
General deterrence as used in criminal justice, refers to crime prevention
achieved through instilling fear in the general population through the punishment of
offenders.
Law enforcement influences behaviour through general deterrence and specific deterrence. Law enforcement generally
aims at general deterrence, which is achieved by increasing the subjective risk of
apprehension.
General deterrence focuses on general prevention of crime by highlighting examples
of specific deviants. The focus is not on the individual actor. The individual actor
receives punishment in public view in order to deter other individuals from deviance in
the future. General deterrence theory focuses on reducing the probability of deviance in
the general population.
General deterrence can be defined as the impact of the threat of legal punishment
on the public at large. Specific deterrence can be seen as the impact of the actual legal
punishment on those who are apprehended. Thus, general deterrence results from the
perception of the public that laws are enforced and that there is a risk of detection and
punishment when laws are violated. Specific deterrence results from actual experiences
with detection, prosecution, and punishment of offenders.
General deterrence focuses on future behaviors, preventing individuals from
engaging in crime or deviant by impacting their rational decision making process. Specific
deterrence focuses on punishing known deviants in order to prevent them from repeat
violation of the specific norms they have broken.
A Reconceptualization of General and Specific Deterrence
MARK C. STAFFORD, MARK WARR
The distinction between general and specific deterrence is widely recognized and accepted
by deterrence researchers, and is used commonly to classify deterrence studies. However,
the logical and empirical grounds for the distinction are not as clear as they might
appear, and the conventional conception has done more to obfuscate than to clarify the
deterrence process. Following a discussion of these issues, the authors propose a
reconceptualization of general and specific deterrence, and apply it to several current
controversies in the deterrence literature. -
jrc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/2/123
The Role of Reputation in General Deterrence
Clare, Joe. and Danilovic, Vesna.
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISA's 49th ANNUAL CONVENTION, BRIDGING
MULTIPLE DIVIDES,
Abstract: In our paper, we theoretically and empirically examine success and failure in
general deterrence. Most deterrence and bargaining studies have focused on the crises of
immediate deterrence partly because of the typical selection bias problems in identifying
deterrence success and failures. Moreover, our focus is on another (empirically often
elusive) variable reputation for past behavior and its potential impact on general
deterrence outcomes (our previous study is quite different: we have focused on immediate
deterrence and conceptually restricted our analysis to Schelling's approach to
reputation). We first clarify multiple meanings of the notion of reputation and elaborate
on potential selection bias problems in understanding its impact as a signaling tool. We
also discuss several related issues such as multiple audiences that have generally been
conflated and outline one of the possible alternatives to disentangle these issues for a
better understanding of general deterrence success. We then empirically test the arguments
with updated historical data on the cases of general deterrence failures among enduring
rivals. The test controls for a possible confounding effect of factors such as interests
and capabilities and is a hard test for the reputation argument. With our least-likely
research design for reputational theory, we expect any confirmatory findings for the
reputational effects to demonstrate their strong validity. Our initial results do provide
some, but partial and conditional, support for reputation for past behavior and we discuss
our findings in the context of deterrence theory, reputational and signaling arguments,
and selection effects in analyzing bargaining success.
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