European Journal of

Criminology
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Do people comply with the law because they fear getting caught?
Per-Olof H. Wikstrm, Andromachi Tseloni and Dimitris Karlis
European Journal of Criminology 2011 8: 401
DOI: 10.1177/1477370811416415
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Article

Do people comply with

the law because they
fear getting caught?

European Journal of Criminology

8(5) 401420
The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1477370811416415
euc.sagepub.com

Per-Olof H. Wikstrm
University of Cambridge, UK

Andromachi Tseloni
Nottingham Trent University, UK

Dimitris Karlis

Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece

Abstract
Do people comply with the law because they fear the consequences? Guided by the theoretical
framework of Situational Action Theory we argue that most people abide by the law not because
they fear the consequences but because they do not perceive crime as an action alternative.
We propose that the potential influence of threats of punishment on peoples law abidance is
specific to those who regularly are motivated and consider committing acts of crime. Using data
from the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+) we empirically
explore the relationships between crime propensity, deterrence perceptions and crime
involvement for four specific types of crime: shoplifting, theft from cars, vandalism and assault.
The findings support the notion that the influence of deterrence perceptions on an individuals
crime involvement is dependent on his or her crime propensity. Moreover, and crucially, results
suggest that deterrence perceptions are largely irrelevant for those who lack a propensity to
commit acts of crime (or specific acts of crime).

Keywords
adolescent crime, crime causation, crime propensity, deterrence, finite mixture Poisson models,
Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+), situational action
theory

Corresponding author:
Per-Olof H. Wikstrm, Professor of Ecological and Developmental Criminology, Institute of Criminology,
University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK.
Email: pow20@cam.ac.uk

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European Journal of Criminology 8(5)

Do people refrain from committing acts of crime because they fear the consequences? In
this study we will address this important question by arguing and presenting empirical
findings consistent with the assumption that the reason most people, most of the time,
refrain from crime is not because they fear the consequences but because they do not see
crime (particular kinds of crime) as an action alternative. However, for those who do
see crime (particular kinds of crime) as an action alternative, we propose that their deterrence sensitivities constitute one factor that may influence their choice of whether or not
to engage in an act of crime.
If we are right in our assumptions, this also has some important methodological
implications for the study of the effect of perceived threats of punishment on crime
involvement in general samples of the population. People who rarely or never consider
committing a crime (or a particular type of crime) tend to lack experience of real-life situations in which they have assessed the risk of punishment (and, even more importantly,
experienced situations where such assessment has affected their actions). Consequently,
their reported views of the risk of punishment are not based on their own experiences of
assessing this risk when considering committing a crime, and, crucially, regardless of
what views they hold about the risk of punishment, these are irrelevant for their compliance with the law (because there are other reasons why they abide by the law). For
example, what can we learn about the role of the threat of punishment in preventing rape
by asking a person who has never or would never consider committing such an act?
This suggests a need to take into account individual differences in crime propensity
when assessing the influence of deterrence perceptions on individuals crime involvement (see, further, Wikstrm, 2007). We define crime propensity as the tendency to
see, and if so, to choose, to breach a rule of conduct stated in law. The propensity to
commit a particular type of crime is thus the extent to which an individual perceives this
particular type of crime as an action alternative.
In this study the focus is on exploring the relationship between individuals crime
propensity (level of temptation to commit a crime), deterrence perception (perceived
risk of getting caught) and crime involvement (self-reported offending). We will not
empirically address the important questions of why individuals vary in their crime
propensity or why they vary in their perception of deterrence, although we will briefly
touch upon these questions in the theory section of our paper. Our research is guided by
the theoretical framework laid out in situational action theory (Wikstrm, 2004, 2005,
2006, 2010, 2011; Wikstrm and Treiber, 2007) and aims to test one of its key assumptions, namely, the conditional relevance of controls, specifically that the influence of
individuals generalized deterrence perceptions on their crime involvement is dependent on their crime propensity.

Classic deterrence theory

A pure deterrence argument is normally based on the assumption that human action is
motivated by seeking pleasure and avoiding pain,1 and that human decision-making
is an outcome of a rational choice in which the costs and benefits of different action
alternatives are calculated (on classic deterrence theory generally, see Andenaes, 1974;
Beccaria, 1972; Bentham, 1970; Zimring and Hawkins, 1973).

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A threat of punishment is one means to influence humans to act in certain desired

ways through the creation of deterrence. Deterrence may be defined as the felt worry
about or fear of consequences when considering breaching a moral rule or committing an
act of crime and punishment may be defined as the purposeful infliction by a third party
of negative consequences, such as rebuke, pain, financial loss or deprivation of freedom,
motivated by and as a response to transgression of a moral rule (Wikstrm, 2007). The
role of the threat of punishment (the potential pain or costs it represents) in preventing
crime is thus to outweigh the potential pleasures or benefits in an individuals decisionmaking about whether or not to commit a crime, and thereby cause him or her to refrain
from committing an act of crime. For deterrence to influence human action effectively, it
minimally requires that individuals (when considering an action that is unlawful) know
what is stated in the law and that they perceive the risk of getting caught as high (certainty)
and the consequences of getting caught serious enough to instil worry or fear of the
consequences (severity). The key question is to what extent compliance with the law is
influenced by fear of punishment? In other words, do people who abide by the law do
this because they fear the consequences?

Deterrence and the role of individual differences

Research into the relationship between deterrence perceptions and crime involvement
generally shows that there is a weak to moderate correlation between perceived risks
of getting caught (certainty) and crime involvement, whereas the findings about the
relationship between perceived severity of punishment and crime involvement are less
consistent (see, for example, Nagin, 1998; Paternoster, 1987; Pratt et al., 2006; Von
Hirsch et al., 1999).
Studies that have explored the role of individual differences in the relationship
between sensitivity to deterrence and crime involvement generally report such differences; the relevance of deterrence as a guide for action appears to vary between
individuals depending on their individual characteristics (for example, Nagin and
Paternoster, 1994; Nagin and Pogarsky, 2003; Piquero and Tibbetts, 1996). The particular individual characteristic that has mostly figured in this research is the individuals
generalized ability to exercise self-control.2 For example, Nagin and Paternoster (1993:
484) conclude from a scenario-based study that persons low in self-control perceive
the rewards of crime as more valuable and the cost of crimes as less aversive, are less
likely to feel the pangs of conscience, and are more likely to report that they would
commit crime than those with more self-control.
Wright et al. (2004) used longitudinal data from the Dunedin study to explore
whether the influence of deterrence (general assessments of the risk of getting caught
and the severity of social sanctions3) on crime involvement is dependent on an individuals propensity to engage in crime. The measures of propensity were measures of
(generalized) self-control4 and self-perceived criminality.5 The authors state that their
particular interest concerns self-control and how it conditions the effect of sanction
threats (2004: 206) and they report that the deterrent effect getting caught (that is,
its negative effect) was greatest (that is, even more negative) among study members

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low in self-control and high in self-perceived criminality (2004: 198, our emphasis).
This finding was repeated using social sanctions as a measure of deterrence.6
On theoretical grounds, it may appear implausible that the weaker an individuals
self-control the more he or she would be influenced by deterrent effects. Thus, this finding, at first sight, appears contrary to what would be expected. If one, however, makes
the assumption that deterrence is relevant for actors crime involvement only to the
extent that they consider breaching the law, and further assumes that there is a negative
correlation between an individuals level of generalized self-control (self-perceived
criminality7) and his or her likelihood to consider committing acts of crime, the presented relationships are just what would be expected.8 In other words, the findings may
merely reflect the fact that the relevance of deterrence as a factor influencing offending
is strongest for those who are most likely to consider committing acts of crime (and
irrelevant for those who are unlikely to consider breaching the law). This interpretation
is also close to the one at which Wright et al. (2004) finally arrive in their concluding
discussion, when other inhibitions are strong (such as those provided by ones moral
beliefs), the deterrent effects of sanction threats are irrelevant (2004: 206). It should,
however, be stressed that this is an interpretation because the effect of any other inhibitors
was not explored in their study.9
A recent German study (Kroneberg et al., 2010) of the role of moral norms and
instrumental incentives in tax fraud and shoplifting in an adult population reports findings that are of particular interest in this context. The authors conclude, for example,
that only respondents who do not feel bound by strongly internalized norms consider
instrumental incentives (2010: 283) such as costs and benefits.

The role of deterrence in situational action theory

The focal point of situational action theory (Wikstrm, 2006, 2010, 2011; Wikstrm
and Treiber, 2007) is the idea that human action is fundamentally an outcome of (i) how
people perceive their action alternatives, and (ii) how they make their choices. This
perceptionchoice process is viewed as the situational mechanism that links an individuals characteristics and the environmental features of the setting in which he or she
operates to their actions (see, further, Wikstrm, 2010). Hence individual and environmental factors that through their interaction directly influence how individuals perceive
their action alternatives and make their choices (habitually or by deliberation) are the
(direct) causes of their actions (including acts of crime).
The theory proposes that an individuals moral rules and habits (and associated moral
emotions)10 are the key individual characteristics that influence his or her perception of
action alternatives, and an individuals ability to exercise self-control11 is a key individual factor in his or her process of choice between perceived action alternatives, but only
when there is a conflict of rule-guidance between a persons own moral rules and the
moral norms by the moral context in which he or she takes part (see, further, Wikstrm,
2010, 2011). The theory conceptualizes crime as an act of breaching a moral rule of
conduct stated in law. The extent to which an individual tends to see crime as an action
alternative is the extent to which he or she has a high crime propensity.12

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However, an individuals actions are dependent not only on his or her individual
characteristics and experiences but also on the features of the environment in which he
or she operates. The theory proposes that the most important aspect of the environment
is its moral context (that is, the moral norms that apply to a setting for example, a
school yard, a city centre entertainment district, a neighbourhood park and their levels
of monitoring and enforcement13). It is in a particular moral context that an individual
faces certain opportunities (which may create temptations) and frictions (which may
create provocation) and it is the interaction between an individuals moral rules and
habits (and in some circumstances also his or her ability to exercise self-control) and the
moral context of the setting that will determine whether experienced temptations or
provocations will materialize (habitually or after some deliberation) in certain types of
actions (including acts of crime).
Individual and environmental factors that affect (i) the development of individuals
moral rules and moral habits (and their associated moral emotions) and their ability to
exercise self-control14 (see, further, Wikstrm, 2005; Wikstrm and Treiber, 2009) and
(ii) the social conditions that are responsible for the emergence, nature and social distribution of different kinds of moral contexts and their changes (see, further, Wikstrm,
2011, but also Wikstrm and Sampson, 2003) may, according to the theory, be regarded
as causes of the causes. Common aspects of the explanation of crime, such as inequality and segregation, are thus considered to be not possible causes of crime but potential
causes of the causes. This implies that to understand the role of developmental and
social mechanisms in crime causation (the problem of the causes of the causes) one first
has to understand the situational mechanisms (the problem of the causes). That is
because, without properly understanding what causes acts of crime, one can obviously
not understand what causes the causes of acts of crime (see, further, Wikstrm, 2011).
In the situational action theory, deterrence (worry or fear of consequences) comes
into play as part of the factors that influence individuals action choices when (but only
when) they consider committing an act of crime, and deterrence experiences are seen as
part of an individuals moral education of relevance to his or her development of a crime
propensity and sensitivities to threats of punishment. Deterrence experiences refer to an
individuals cumulative experiences of his or her own, and his or her observations of
others, encounters with threat of punishment and punishments.15 It is analytically very
important to distinguish between the role of deterrence experiences in propensity formation and the role of deterrence in guiding action. This paper is concerned with the role
of deterrence and therefore we will not say much more about the role of deterrence
experiences as part of an individuals moral education and its relevance for an individuals development of a crime propensity (see, further, Wikstrm, 2007).
Effective deterrence may be viewed as a situational mechanism (the creation of feelings of worry or fear) that links perceived threats of punishment (cause) to a decision to
abide by the law (effect) when the individual is considering committing an act of crime.
The theory proposes that deterrence as a factor influencing human action is relevant only
when an individual deliberates over action alternatives that involve committing an act of
crime. This implies that, for those who do not see crime as an action alternative (or abide
by the law out of habit), deterrence is irrelevant as a factor influencing their law abidance. It further implies that deterrence is an irrelevant factor when people commit acts of

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European Journal of Criminology 8(5)

Perception of
action alternatives

Crime an
action
alternative
Propensity
x
Exposure

Process
of choice

Relevance of
deterrence

Deliberation

Threats of
punishment
relevant

Habit

Threats of
punishment
irrelevant

Crime not
an action
alternative

Threats of
punishment
irrelevant

Figure 1.The relevance of deterrence in crime causation according to Situational Action

Theory illustrated

crime out of habit. The role of deterrence in influencing human action is specific to those
cases in which an individual is motivated and considers (deliberates over) committing an
act of crime (as illustrated in Figure 1).
On the basis of these theoretical assumptions we expect empirically to find that the
relationships between an individuals generalized deterrence perceptions and his or her
crime involvement will be dependent on his or her crime propensity (that is, the extent to
which they tend to perceive crime, or a specific crime, as an action alternative).

The data and measurements: The Peterborough

Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study
(PADS+)
The data for this study are taken from the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult
Development Study (PADS+). This is an ongoing longitudinal study (financed by the
UK Economic and Social Research Council) of a cohort of 716, at age 1112 (year
2003), randomly selected boys and girls from the city of Peterborough (UK). The study
has so far (2010) completed seven annual waves of data collection with a retention rate
of 96 percent. The first wave consisted of one-to-one interviews with the subjects main
care-taker (parent) and the subsequent six waves consisted of data collection through
interviewer-led small-group questionnaires and one-to-one psychometric tests and spacetime budgets conducted with the subjects themselves. For detailed information about the
study design, its data and measurements, see Wikstrm et al. (2011). The data analysed
in this paper refer to Wave 4 of the data collection (when the subjects were aged 1415).
As already mentioned, the retention rate of the study has been very high and, in Wave 4,
703 subjects (98 percent) still took part in the study.16
For this study, the main data used refer to questions about the subjects self-reported
crimes (crime involvement), the extent to which they had considered committing some

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Wikstrm et al.

specific types of crime (crime propensity) and their estimated risk of getting caught if
committing these specific crimes (deterrence perceptions).
The questions in the study on self-reported criminality refer to 10 different types of
crime, but only four of those are included for this study:
1. Have you in the last year (year 2005) stolen anything from a shop (for example,
a CD, clothes, cosmetics or any other things)?
2. Have you in the last year (year 2005) broken into a car to steal something?
3. Have you in the last year (year 2005) for fun or because you were bored or
angry damaged or destroyed things not belonging to you (for example, smashed
windows or street lights, scratched the paint of cars, sprayed graffiti on a wall,
damaged a bicycle)?
4. Not counting events when you took money or other things from someone, have
you in the last year (year 2005) beaten up or hit someone (for example, punched,
stabbed, kicked or headbutted someone). Do not count fights with your brothers
or sisters.
For each crime question the subjects were asked whether they had committed the crime
in question and, if so, how many times they had committed the crime. For this study we
will use the frequency of crime measure. This measure has been truncated so all reporting crimes above 15 have been counted as 15. The percentage of subjects reporting 15 or
more crimes was 1.7 percent for shoplifting, 0.1 percent for thefts from cars, 1.5 percent
for vandalism and 2.0 percent for assault.
The questions about the subjects propensity to commit certain crimes were introduced in the following way:
Sometimes people think about doing things without necessarily doing them. We would like to
ask you a few questions about whether you have thought about doing certain things. When you
answer remember that it does not matter if you actually did or did not do things we ask about,
we just want to know if you were tempted or not to do them.

Two questions about crime propensity (temptation) were put to the subjects: (A) How
often do you feel tempted to . . . (the response categories were never, sometimes,
often and very often) and (B) When was the last time you felt tempted to . . . (the
response categories were last week, last month, last year, more than a year ago
and have never felt tempted). Each question was asked for four specific types of crime:
(1) stealing from a shop, (2) breaking into a car to steal something, (3) destroying or
damaging something not belonging to you, and (4) hitting someone who annoys you or
who makes you angry. The correlation between the two measures is high (shoplifting,
r = .80; theft from car, r = .75; vandalism, r = .63; assault, r = .57) and for this study we
will use the latter of the two measures (that is, when was the last time you felt tempted),
coded as 4 (last week) to 0 (never) for the statistical analyses. The assumption is that a
more recent temptation will reflect a higher propensity because those who are regularly
tempted are more likely to display a recent temptation. The fact that there is a strong
correlation between the two different measures of propensity may lend some support to

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European Journal of Criminology 8(5)

this assumption (that is, those who claim to have been recently tempted also tend to claim
that they are tempted more often).
The questions about generalized deterrence perceptions (sensitivities) that is, the
assessed risk of getting caught (and if the subject thought they would be in great trouble
if they got caught) were introduced in the following manner:
Now I would like you to answer some questions about how great a risk you think there is of
being caught, and how serious the consequences of being caught would be, if you committed
some typical types of crime. When we say risk of getting caught we mean the risk that
someone finds out you have committed the crime and reports it to the police.

The questions about the risk of getting caught and the consequences of getting caught
were asked for each of the four types of crime used in the question about propensity. For
this study we will use only the question about the risk of getting caught, which was stated
as follows: Do you think that there is a great risk of getting caught if you [specification
of crime]. The response categories were: no risk at all, a small risk, a great risk and
a very great risk. They were coded as 0 (no risk at all) to 3 (a very great risk) for the
statistical analyses.

Key hypotheses
In this paper we will test two key hypotheses:
(1) People vary in their crime propensity (that is, in the level at which they perceive
(particular) acts of crime as an action alternative); specifically, people can be
broadly divided into those who are crime averse and those who are crime prone (as
regards particular types of crime).
(2) Deterrence perceptions will influence the likelihood of crime involvement
for those who are crime prone but will be irrelevant for those who are crime
averse.

Results
Variation in crime propensity
The findings of the study show that the subjects vary significantly in their crime propensity and that most subjects (with the exception of assault) report low levels of crime
propensity.17 The study further shows that the propensities to commit specific types of
crime vary, with assault having (by far) the most and theft from cars the fewest subjects
demonstrating a higher crime propensity (Table 1). It is interesting to note that the
majority of the subjects (68 percent) report having been tempted to hit someone within
the last month, and as many as 43 percent within the last week. We suspect that this high
propensity rate may have something to do with the age of the subjects (1415 years of
age) and that this rate may be lower among older subjects (but the lack of any existing
data to explore this makes it just an educated guess).

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Wikstrm et al.
Table 1. Crime propensity: Sample percentages
Last time tempted to

Never
More than a year ago
Within last year
Within last month
Within last week

Crime
Shoplifting

Theft from cars

Vandalism

Assault

57
15
9
10
9
100

91
4
2
2
1
100

56
13
10
12
9
100

13
7
12
25
43
100

Note: Within last month excludes those tempted within last week, within last year excludes those tempted
within last month, etc.

Table 2. Zero-order correlations between

temptation and actual crimes
Crime

Shoplifting
Theft from cars
Vandalism
Assault

.49**
.41**
.41**
.28**

**significant at .01 level or better.

The relationship between crime propensity and actual offending

The crime that most subjects are tempted to commit is also the crime that most subjects
have committed (assault 28 percent), and the crime that the subjects are least tempted
to commit is also the crime that least subjects have actually committed (thefts from
cars 3 percent).
The findings of the study show (as expected) that there is a rather strong correlation
between being tempted to commit a particular act of crime and the frequency of actually
committing that crime (Table 2).18 However, the majority of people who claimed that
they had been tempted at least once any time during the last year19 did not actually
commit the crime in question (during the last year), showing that there is far from any
one-to-one relationship between being tempted and acting on temptations, and therefore
that there is room for other factors (such as deterrence sensitivity) to explain why a
temptation materializes into action or not. The percentage who reported being tempted
at least once during last year and also committed the crime in question during last year
was 41 percent for shoplifting, 30 percent for theft from cars, 46 percent for acts of
vandalism and 35 percent for assaults.

Deterrence perception: Assessments of the risk of getting caught

The findings show that the subjects overall tend to assess the risk of getting caught highest if committing theft from a car and lowest if committing an act of vandalism (Table 3).

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European Journal of Criminology 8(5)

Table 3. Assessment of the general risk of getting caught if committing a particular crime:
Sample percentages
Risk

No risk at all
A little risk
A great risk
A very great risk

Crime
Shoplifting

Theft from cars

Vandalism

Assault

2
33
45
20

2
10
36
52

9
48
31
12

5
24
39
32

It is of particular interest to note that the subjects more often assess the risk of getting
caught as higher for shoplifting than for vandalism (for example, the situational cues of
relevance to deterrence may generally be stronger in circumstances in which people are
tempted to commit shoplifting than in circumstances in which they are tempted to vandalize something).
It is also of interest to note that the subjects more often assess the risk of getting caught
as higher for thefts from cars than for assault. In cases of assault there is always a witness
(the victim) who has the possibility (if not killed) to report the offender, so this must imply
that the subjects in many cases assess that a victim generally would be unwilling to report
the crime to the police or tell someone who would report it (recall that the instructions
given to the subjects when answering these questions was that we defined the risk of being
caught as the risk that someone finds out you have committed the crime and reports it to
the police). This finding may be particular to young people and a consequences of the
common circumstances in which they get involved in violence (for example, fights in
school yards). It may very well be the case that older assault offenders (perhaps with the
exception of violence occurring in domestic circumstances) assess the risk of someone
reporting the violence (and hence the risk of getting caught) to be generally higher than do
young assault offenders (although we lack data to explore whether that is the case).
The general assessment of the risk of being caught may be conceptualized as an aspect
of an individuals generalized deterrence perception. The relationship between subjects
deterrence perception (sensitivity) and their crime involvement is generally in the
expected direction but rather weak (Table 4). However, we believe that this finding
underestimates the role of deterrence sensitivities for active offenders because the calculation of the relationship includes those who never or rarely consider committing or have
committed an act of crime (the specific type of crime).
The next step of the analyses is therefore to explore the interaction effects between
crime propensity (temptation) and deterrence perception (the assessed risk of getting
caught) for the prediction of crime involvement.

The interaction between crime propensity and deterrence perception

(sensitivity) in predicting crime involvement
The interaction effect between crime propensity and deterrence perception is present
for all four types of crime, but is much stronger for the more instrumental crimes of

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Wikstrm et al.
Table 4. Zero-order correlations between general
assessments of risk of getting caught and self-reported offending
Crime

r
.18**
.16**
.19**
.21**

Shoplifting
Theft from cars
Vandalism
Assault
**significant at .01 level or better.

Table 5. Multiple regression analyses

Beta

Significance

Shoplifting
Propensity
Deterrence sensitivity
Interaction term
Multiple R2 100 = 28

0.17
0.06
0.37

.004
n.s.
.000

Theft from cars

Propensity
Deterrence sensitivity
Interaction term
Multiple R2 100 = 19

0.09
0.10
0.31

n.s.
.005
.000

Vandalism
Propensity
Deterrence sensitivity
Interaction term
Multiple R2 100 = 19

0.28
0.12
0.13

.000
.001
.019

Assault
Propensity
Deterrence sensitivity
Interaction term
Multiple R2 100 = 12

0.38
0.16
0.18

.000
.000
.001

shoplifting and thefts from cars than for the more expressive crimes of assault and vandalism (Table 5). This may reflect that subjects more often assess situations rationally
(for example, take deterrence into consideration) when committing shoplifting and thefts
from cars than when attacking another person or committing an act of vandalism.
Crimes such as assault and vandalism are more often likely to involve higher levels of
emotion and stress, which generally do not promote rational deliberation. In circumstances of high emotion and stress, habitual reactions are likely to be more common (see
Wikstrm and Treiber, 2007). These are also types of crime in which the offender more
often is under the influence of alcohol (or other drugs with similar effects) and therefore

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European Journal of Criminology 8(5)

Table 6. Regression coefficients (unstandardized) for the effect of deterrence perception on

frequency of crime by level of crime propensity (for each type of crime)
Crime

Shoplifting
Theft from cars
Vandalism
Assault

Crime propensity
Low

Medium

High

0.05
0.02
0.14
0.09

0.03
0.08
1.13
0.46

0.98
1.91
1.13
0.77

may be less likely to consider the future consequences of his or her actions (for example,
the risk of getting caught).20
An interesting question in this context is why people who display higher levels of
temptation vary in their assessment of the risk of getting caught? We have no data to
explore the reason for this variation but some previous research indicates that this (at
least partially) may have to do with their previous successes and failures in committing
acts of crime without getting caught. Horney and Marshall (1992: 589) report from their
time-calendar study of convicted males that the data suggest, at least for certain crimes,
that perceptions are formed in a rational manner, that is, the likelihood of arrest is judged
on the basis of how many times a person has been able to commit the crime without
being arrested. They further showed that those offenders who assessed the risk of arrest
as higher tended to commit less crime (1992: 582).
To illustrate the nature of the interactions, a comparison of the regression coefficients
for the effect of deterrence sensitivity on crime frequency by level of crime propensity
was conducted (Table 6).21 For all types of crime,22 the (negative) effect of deterrence
sensitivity on crime frequency is lowest for those with the weakest crime propensity and
highest for those with the strongest crime propensity. The findings thus support the
notion that the influence of deterrence perception on crime involvement is dependent on
(interacts with) crime propensity: the (negative) influence of deterrence perception on
frequency of crime involvement is stronger for those with a higher crime propensity.

Analysing count variables with highly skewed distributions

So far we have demonstrated that there are significant variations in young peoples
crime propensity and sensitivity to deterrence (Tables 1 and 3). We have also demonstrated that there is a positive relationship (but far from any one-to-one relationship)
between crime propensity and crime commission (Table 2) and a rather weak negative
relationship between deterrence perception and crime commission (Table 4). We
have further demonstrated by OLS regression that there is an interaction effect between
crime propensity and deterrence perception in influencing crime outcomes (Table 5),
and that deterrence sensitivity appears irrelevant for those with low crime propensity but
affects the frequency of crime involvement (negatively) for those with higher crime
propensities (Table 6). All these findings support our theoretical assumptions.
We will now present some further tests of our key assumptions using statistical
techniques especially developed for the analysis of count variables with highly skewed
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distributions, such as the number of self-reported crimes the key dependent variable in
our study. A number of different statistical specifications are technically appropriate for
modelling count variables with highly skewed distributions (McCullagh and Nelder,
1989) and have been fitted to our data for initial model selection (results available from
the second author, Tseloni). The most appropriate model for testing our substantive
research questions, however, is the Wang model (Wang et al., 1998) and was also
suggested in the preliminary model selection analysis.
The point of departure for the analyses is that we fundamentally have two groups of
individuals, those who are crime prone (that is, on a regular basis see crime as an action
alternative) and those who are crime averse (that is, rarely or never see crime as an action
alternative). Individuals aversion to break the law may vary for different types of crime
(that is, may be crime specific). For example, some individuals may consider shoplifting
but never car theft. The role of deterrence perception may also vary by crime type according to the assessed risk of getting caught. We therefore test the hypothesis about the role
played by deterrence perception for law abidance for specific types of crime. In other
words, the hypothesis we test refers to whether an individual who is prone to commit a
particular crime is influenced in his or her level of crime activities by his or her perception of the risk of getting caught if committing that particular crime.
Crime-averse individuals are not expected to commit acts of crime. In statistical
terms they have zero expected or latent propensities to commit crime. This is not the
same, however, as assuming that a crime-averse youth has never committed or will never
commit a crime. The observed offending rate of this group may indeed differ from zero.
The argument is only that, in normal circumstances, they will abide by the law (do not
see a particular crime as an action alternative), although there may be special (or extreme)
circumstances in which some of them may occasionally breach the law.
The crime-prone group, that is those who with some regularity consider breaking the
law, has a greater than zero expected crime rate or latent propensity to offend. This is not
claiming that each individual from the crime-prone group has to have offended during the
period studied. Situational action theory purports that crime is an outcome of the interaction of an individuals crime propensity and his or her exposure to criminogenic behaviour
settings. Some of the adolescents may, for example, have been subjected to very strong
parental monitoring and controls, preventing them from exposure to criminogenic settings. Thus their observed crime count may well be zero. However, we expect generally to
find that perceptions of the risk of getting caught (deterrence sensitivity) will influence the
level of crime involvement for the crime-prone group of individuals.
Our original research hypotheses that people vary in their crime propensity (for this
analysis dichotomized as crime proneness and crime aversion) and that only crime-prone
people are affected by deterrence sensitivities are implicated in the finite mixture
Poisson with logit mixing probabilities model (Wang et al., 1998).23

Are there crime-averse young people?

The first question to address is whether we are justified in assuming the existence of
crime-averse young people (that is, young people who do not see particular types of
crime as an action alternative and therefore do not commit these crimes). Table 7

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European Journal of Criminology 8(5)

Table 7. Crime-specific annual estimated probabilities of committing an act of crime by level of

crime propensity
Crime propensity

Crime

Tempted:
More than a year ago/never
Last year
Last month
Last week

Shoplifting

Theft from cars

Vandalism

Assault

.003
.116
.271
.522

.014
.173
.562
.191

.004
.268
.413
.504

.001
.001
.087
.251

presents the annual probabilities of committing specific acts of crime by level of crime
propensity (temptations) as estimated by Wang models for shoplifting, theft from cars,
vandalism and assault. The findings confirm the hypothesis that the stronger the crime
propensity the higher the estimated probability that the young person will commit an act
of crime.
The only deviation from the general pattern is that the probability to engage in an act
of theft from a car is lower for those with the highest propensity (tempted last week) than
for those with the next-highest level of propensity (tempted last month). It is likely that
this oddity is owing to the very small number having been tempted to commit a theft
from a car last week. The analysis, crucially, also demonstrates that, for those with the
lowest crime propensity, their probability of engaging in acts of crime is in effect zero.
In other words, the analysis supports the existence of crime-averse young people.

Is deterrence sensitivity irrelevant for crime-averse young people but effective

in reducing the level of crime involvement for crime-prone young people?
The next question is whether deterrence perception (the assessed risk of getting caught)
is irrelevant for those who are crime averse but reduces the level of crime involvement
for those who are crime prone. Figures 2 to 5 display the effects of deterrence perception
on the number of offences that crime-averse and crime-prone young people are expected
to commit. The proposed hypothesis that deterrence perception (sensitivity) is relevant
only for crime-prone individuals and has little relevance for offending by crime-averse
individuals is largely validated across all crime types. Figures 2 to 5, which give the
predicted number of crime-specific events for each group of youths across levels of
deterrence perception for the respective crime type based on the estimated parameters of
this analysis, illustrate the validity of our theoretical assertions.
The findings show clearly (for all four types of crime) that for the crime-averse group
of young people their deterrence perception has little or no effect on their frequency of
crime involvement. These results are highly consistent with the predictions based on
situational action theory and the earlier OLS analysis findings (see Tables 5 and 6 above).
As regards the importance of deterrence perception for the frequency of crime in the
crime-prone group, the findings show that the higher the deterrence sensitivity the less

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Estimated mean shoplifting

Wikstrm et al.

8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

No risk at all

A small risk

A very great
risk
Deterrence sensitivity (risk getting caught)
Crime propensity low

A great risk

Crime propensity high

Estimated mean thefts of/from cars

Figure 2. Estimated frequency of shoplifting and deterrence perception by propensity

20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

No risk at
A small A great risk
A very
all
risk
great risk
Deterrence sensitivity (risk getting caught)
Crime propensity low

Crime propensity high

Figure 3. Estimated frequency of thefts of/from cars and deterrence perception by propensity

likely crime-prone young people are to commit thefts from cars and acts of vandalism
(see Figures 3 and 4, respectively). The findings for assault are largely in line with theoretical expectations: the estimated frequency of crime drops by increasing deterrence
sensitivity with the exception of the final category, for which it increases (compared with
the previous category), giving this relationship a somewhat curvilinear shape (Figure 5),
which may be justified by the expressive nature of this crime. The category of crime that
has the greatest deviation from theoretical expectations is shoplifting, where only those
with the highest deterrence sensitivity show a lower crime frequency (although this

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Estimated mean vandalism

European Journal of Criminology 8(5)

9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

No risk at A small
A great
A very
all
risk
risk
great risk
Deterrence sensitivity (risk getting caught)
Crime propensity low

Crime propensity high

Estimated mean assaults

Figure 4. Estimated frequency of vandalism and deterrence perception by propensity

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

No risk at
all

A small
risk

A great
risk

A very
great risk

Deterrence sensitivity (risk getting caught)

Crime propensity low

Crime propensity high

Figure 5. Estimated frequency of assaults and deterrence perception by propensity

difference is statistically non-significant; Figure 2). In a nutshell, the estimated Wang

model results are fully consistent with theoretical predictions (and the earlier OLS
analyses) as regards theft from cars and vandalism, are largely consistent for assault, but
are theoretically unexpected for shoplifting.
In this context it should be noted that, in contrast to the previously presented OLS
analyses, the estimated Wang model assumes for parsimony only two categories of young
people crime prone and crime averse and does not take into account variation in
crime propensity within the crime-prone group. It is therefore a possibility that the less
clear (negative) relationship between deterrence sensitivity and frequency of crime for
shoplifting masks variation in this relationship within the crime-prone group. Another
possible contributing factor may be that the perceived potential consequences if caught
for shoplifting may be regarded as too mild to affect behaviour regardless of the perceived risk of getting caught (we did not consider this aspect of deterrence in our study).

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Conclusion
Our findings support the assumption derived from situational action theory that one
important reason many people do not engage in acts of crime (particular types of crime)
is that they do not see crime (a particular crime) as an action alternative, rather than that
they abstain from it because they fear the consequences (their assessment of the risk of
getting caught). People who do not see crime as an action alternative do not tend to
engage in crime regardless of whether they assess the risk of getting caught as very high
or very low. Our findings also indicate that, amongst those who more regularly see crime
(a particular crime) as an action alternative, their crime involvement is generally influenced by their assessment of the risk of getting caught (their deterrence sensitivity): those
who assess the risk of getting caught as higher tend to commit crime less frequently.
Notes
This paper was first presented at the 2008 European Society of Criminology conference in
Edinburgh and subsequently at the 2008 American Society of Criminology conference in St Louis.
1. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and
pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as determine what we
shall do (Bentham, 1970: 11).
2. We suggest that the term generalized ability to exercise self-control better describes what is
actually measured in these studies than the term self-control (used by the authors), because
self-control is best treated as a situational concept (Wikstrm and Treiber, 2007) whereas
the measure used in these studies predominantly asks the subjects to report on their (nonsetting-specific) general tendencies to be impulsive or discounting the future (for example in
answering questions such as I base my decisions on what will happen to me in the short run
rather than in the long run or I act on the spur of the moment without stopping to think).
3. Social sanctions were measured as anticipated negative reactions from significant others and
assessed the risk of negative influences on future job prospects and finding an ideal partner.
No measure of the general assessment of the risk of legal threats of punishment was included
in the study.
4. Wright et al. (2004) use two very complex measures of generalized self-control, summarizing
many different scales, measured at many different ages. For example, the measure of childhood self-control summarizes 167 separate measurement items (p. 191) and the measure of
adolescent self-control summarizes 76 measurement items (p. 192). We would argue that the
ability to exercise self-control is a factor that may influence an individuals crime propensity
rather than being a measure of crime propensity.
5. Self-perceived criminality is a measure in which the subjects are asked to evaluate their own
level of criminality compared with that of most people their age. Whether or not this is a good
measure of propensity is highly arguable.
6. Apart from a significant interaction term, Wright et al. also show that the negative relationship with the assessments of the risk of getting caught (severity of social sanctions) gradually decreases in magnitude when analysed by five categories of generalized self-control
ranging from very low self-control to very high self-control. For the last category (very
high self-control) the relationship is non-significant.
7. In this case, a positive correlation with the likelihood of considering committing acts of crime.
8. The interpretation of the findings is complicated by the fact that there are no separate measures
of capability to exercise self-control and propensity to consider engaging in acts of crime,

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9.

10.

11.

12.

13.
14.

15.
16.
17.

18.

19.

European Journal of Criminology 8(5)

and by the fact that the former tends to be treated in the literature as a measure of the latter.
Ideally, these two variables should be measured separately in a study of crime decision-making
to unravel their joint and separate impact on an individuals engagement in acts of crime.
Wright et al. (2004) do control for sex and social class, but it is unclear why they do this,
because there is no discussion of or argument presented for why the relationship between
self-control, deterrence and offending should be dependent on an individuals sex or
social class.
Moral values are values about what is the right or wrong thing to do in a circumstance,
whereas moral habits refer to automated responses to a familiar circumstance based on a
moral habituation to act in a particular way as a response to the particular circumstance.
Moral emotions refer to the individuals strength of the feelings of shame and guilt that would
appear as a consequence of him or her transgressing a particular moral rule (or breaching a
particular law).
Self-control may be defined as the successful inhibition of a perceived action alternative or
the interruption of a course of action that conflicts with an individuals morality (Wikstrm
and Treiber, 2007). Note that this is a very different conceptualization of self-control from
that proposed by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), who view self-control as an individual trait.
Here self-control is viewed as a situational concept, and the individual characteristic that
influences an individuals ability to exercise self-control is his or her executive capabilities.
The extent to which an individuals moral values and moral habits correspond to the moral
rules stated in the laws is the extent to which he or she will have a lower crime propensity, and
the extent to which they do not correspond to the moral rules stated in the law is the extent to
which he or she will have a higher crime propensity.
Incidentally, we argue that the important concept and measures of collective efficacy
(developed by Sampson and colleagues, for example, Sampson et al., 1997) are best treated
as a concept and measure referring to the moral context of a setting.
An individuals ability to exercise self-control in a particular situation is seen not only as a
consequence of his or her individual characteristics (that is, his or her executive capabilities)
but also as a result of their interaction with momentary factors such as high levels of emotion
and stress and intoxication (Wikstrm and Treiber, 2007).
Deterrence experiences refer not only to relevant actions taken by the criminal justice system
and its actors but, crucially, also to all threats of sanctions and sanctions taken by the key
actors of informal social control, such as parents, teachers, employers and neighbours.
The number of subjects who are male is 351 and the number of subjects who are female is 352.
In this context it is of interest to mention that, in a scenario-based study, Nagin (1998: 483)
reports that the majority of subjects in the study stated there was no chance they would
commit the crime in question when the crime concerned was theft (63 percent) or sexual assault
(83 percent) but not when it was drunken driving (33 percent). This finding supports the notion
that many types of crime are acts that most people would rarely or not at all consider (and that
for all crime types there are at least some who would not consider committing the crime).
The fact that assault has a somewhat weaker relationship may indicate that, amongst those
tempted to commit the crime, the frequency with which this temptation materializes is somewhat less than for other crimes. Something that possibly could be a consequence of that
assault is the only one of the four studied crime types in which there is always a risk that the
object of the crime (the victim) could fight back and that this in some cases may act as a
particular deterrent preventing a potential offender from acting upon a temptation to attack
another person.
That is, of those who answered that they were tempted last week, last month or last year.

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20. Although for this age group the role of intoxication (although still important) is probably less
than for older offenders because a lot of their assaults and acts of vandalism take place in the
school environment in which one has to assume that they generally are sober (see Wikstrm
and Butterworth, 2006).
21. High propensity was defined as one standard deviation or more above the mean, and low
propensity was defined as one standard deviation or less below the mean.
22. With the exceptions of vandalism, where the effect is the same for the medium- and highpropensity groups, and shoplifting, where the effects are marginally (but insignificantly)
lower for the medium- than for the low-propensity group.
23. The technical description of this method and its application to our data was originally included
in an annex but it had to be omitted owing to space limitations; it is available from the second
author (Tseloni) upon request.

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