Journal ArticleDOI
The artifact issue in deterrence research
Jack P. Gibbs,Glenn Firebaugh +1 more
TLDR
The negative correlation between crime rates and estimates of the objective certainty of a legal punishment is interpreted by some as support for the deterrence doctrine, while others argue that the correlation is not inherently artifactual but is nevertheless spurious because of measurement error as discussed by the authors.Abstract:
The often-observed negative correlation between crime rates and estimates of the objective certainty of a legal punishment is interpreted by some as support for the deterrence doctrine. Others, however, characterize the correlation as inherently artifactual because the variables being correlated have a common term (number of crimes is the numerator of the crime rate and the denominator of the objective certainty variable). Still others argue that the correlation is not inherently artifactual but is nevertheless spurious because of measurement error. This paper shows that the negative correlation is not inherently artifactual and provides evidence to support the measurement error interpretation. Unfortunately, however, there is no definitive way to demonstrate whether the negative correlation between the crime rate and the objective certainty of punishment rejects deterrence or merely measurement error.read more
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Why Do Increased Arrest Rates Appear to Reduce Crime: Deterrence, Incapacitation, or Measurement Error?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use a modified version of the techniques of Griliches and Hausman (1986) for dealing with measurement error in panel data, and demonstrate that the presence of measurement error does not appear to explain the observed relationship between arrest rates and crime rates.
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Prison population growth and crime reduction
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of state prison populations on crime is typically estimated by applying the lambda, the individual crime rate, of prisoners or arrestees, and the result is an uncertain estimate of 16 to 25 index crimes averted per year per each additional prisoner.
Journal ArticleDOI
Why do increased arrest rates appear to reduce crime: deterrence, incapacitation, or measurement error?
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discriminate between deterrence, incapacitation, and measurement error as explanations for the negative empirical relationship between arrest rates and crime, and conclude that deterrence appears to be the more important factor, particularly for property crimes.
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Exploring a feminist routine activities approach to explaining sexual assault
TL;DR: In this paper, two hypotheses on lifestyle are tested and supported by a local victimization survey of 288 undergraduate women: women who go out drinking more often and women who are friends of motivated offenders are more likely than other women to be sexually victimized.
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Drugs and the Law: A Psychological Analysis of Drug Prohibition
TL;DR: This framework is used to explore the potential behavioral effects of decriminalization and legalization and highlights the need for a more realistic perspective that acknowledges the limitations of human rationality and the importance of moral reasoning and informal social control factors.
References
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Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation
TL;DR: In this paper, a theory of participation in illegitimate activities is developed and tested against data on variations in index crimes across states in the United States and behavioral implications are derived using the state preference approach to behavior under uncertainty.
Journal ArticleDOI
Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation
TL;DR: In this article, a theory of participation in illegitimate activities is developed and tested against data on variations in index crimes across states in the United States and behavioral implications are derived using the state preference approach to behavior under uncertainty.
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Mathematical contributions to the theory of evolution.—On a form of spurious correlation which may arise when indices are used in the measurement of organs
TL;DR: In this paper, a statistical biologist attribntes the correlation between two functions like u and v to organic relationship and the particular case that is likely to occur is when u and V are indices with the same denominator for the correlation of indices seems at first sight a very plausible measure of organic correlation.
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Are uniform crime reports a valid indicator of the index crimes? an affirmative answer with minor qualifications*
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the perceived seriousness of the crime, first and primarily as defined by the victim, second as determined by the police, apparently accounts for most of the variance in whether a crime is reported and officially recorded; personal characteristics of the offender and victim have only minor effects.
Journal ArticleDOI
User's Guide to Ratio Variables
Glenn Firebaugh,Jack P. Gibbs +1 more
TL;DR: The authors argue that the use of ratio variables is justified when the ratios themselves, rather than their components, are of "theoretical interest" and argue that observed relations between such variables are likely to be "artifactual."