deterrence: one construct, many systems

In criminology, deterrence is the idea that the prospect of punishment discourages people from offending, with the deterrent effect depending on how certain, how swift, and how severe the sanction is expected to be. Beccaria's On crimes and punishments (1764) argued that certainty and promptness of a proportionate penalty prevent crime more effectively than cruelty, distinguishing general deterrence of the public from specific deterrence of the punished individual. The referent is the preventive influence of threatened sanctions on would-be offenders, assessed against crime rates and the perceived risk of being caught and punished.[1]

Unit

The reduction in offending attributable to the perceived certainty, celerity, and severity of punishment

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Studied through the association between sanction risk and offending rates, and perceived-risk surveys of would-be offenders

In security studies, deterrence is the use of a credible threat of unacceptable retaliation to persuade an adversary not to take a hostile action, most sharply developed for the nuclear age. Schelling's Arms and influence (1966) analysed deterrence as a bargaining relationship resting on the capacity to hurt, where the threat must be both capable and believable to hold an opponent in check. It is the same preventive logic as in criminology, raised to the level of states and realised through the threat of military punishment rather than legal sanction, and gauged by an adversary's restraint.[2]

Unit

An adversary's restraint produced by a credible, capable threat of retaliation

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Judged by whether threatened actors refrain from the proscribed action and by assessments of threat credibility and capability

In the economics of crime, deterrence is modelled as the effect of expected punishment, the probability of apprehension multiplied by the severity of the penalty, on a rational actor who weighs the costs and benefits of offending. Becker's 1968 Crime and punishment: An economic approach formalised offending as a choice under risk and framed the design of enforcement and penalties as a problem of achieving deterrence at least social cost. It is the same construct as in criminology and security, expressed as a decision under uncertainty and measured by the elasticity of offending with respect to expected punishment.[3]

Unit

The responsiveness of offending to the expected cost of punishment (probability × severity)

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Estimated by the elasticity of offence rates with respect to the probability and severity of punishment