Lethal Police Response as a Crime Deterrent

57‐City Study Suggests a Decrease in Certain Crimes

Bibliographic Data

ID7579396
AuthorsDale O Cloninger (University of Bradford, corresponding author)
Year1991
Volume50
Issue1
Pages59-69
Publication date1991-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Economics and Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9246 • E-ISSN: 1536-7150
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1536-7150.1991.tb02487.x
OpenAlexW1930305182
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited6

A bstract . Since Gary Becker's article on the economics of crime and punishment , economists have explored extensively the possible deterrence effect of standard enforcement variables , not only for their public policy implications but to test the hypothesis that illegitimate behavior is sensitive to measures of risk and reward (loss) as well as social, psychological and cultural forces. Research has been needed on the probability of death to the offender caused by official police action—“lethal response.” To measure the criminal reaction to intercity variations in the rate of civilian killings of police in the line of duty, a cross‐sectional study of 57 cities was undertaken. Variations in non‐homicide violent crime rate were found to be inversely related to variations in the intercity lethal response rate. this suggests the presence of a deterrence effect, a one Sixth of one percent decrease in the rate of non‐homicide violent crime being associated with a one percent increase in the lethal response rate

Criminology · Deterrence (psychology) · Enforcement · Environmental health · Homicide · Injury prevention · Law enforcement · Poison control · Political science · Punishment (psychology) · Violent crime · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology · Traffic and Road Safety · Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses

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