Deterrence and Deterrability

Bibliographic Data

ID9680155
AuthorsBruce A Jacobs (The University of Texas at Dallas, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume48
Issue2
Pages417-441
Publication date2010-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCriminology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-1384 • E-ISSN: 1745-9125
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1745-9125.2010.00191.x
OpenAlexW1978422169
LanguageEN
Citations received87
References cited33

The first forays into Western criminological theory came in the language of deterrence (Beccaria, 1963 [1764]). The paradigm itself is simple and straightforward, offering an explanation for crime that doubles as a solution (Pratt et al., 2006). Crime occurs when the expected rewards outweigh the anticipated risks, so increasing the risks, at least theoretically, will prevent most crimes in most circumstances. If deterrence describes the perceptual process by which would‐be offenders calculate risks and rewards prior to offending, then deterrability refers to the offender's capacity and/or willingness to perform this calculation. The distinction between deterrence and deterrability is critical to understanding criminality from a utilitarian perspective. However, by attempting to answer “big picture” questions about the likelihood of offending relative to sanction threats, precious little scholarship has attended to the situated meaning of deterrability. This article draws attention to this lacuna in hopes of sensitizing criminology to an area of inquiry that, at present, remains only loosely developed

Criminology · Deterrence (psychology · Deterrence theory · Meaning (existential · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Scholarship · Situated · Sociology · Computer Science · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Law · Psychology · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending · Social Psychology

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