Perceptions of Punishment Risk from Adolescence to Middle Adulthood

• In Event: Extending Rational Choice Theory: Individual Differences in Perceptions of Risks and Rewards of Offending

Abstract

Ray Paternoster told us in 2010 that, “We know very little about exactly how perceptions of punishment certainty, severity, and celerity are formed.” Nearly ten years later, we believe the same statement could be made today. This paper, therefore, offers a new perspective on individual-level perceptions of punishment risk. We conceptualize perceptions of risk as an age-graded outcome that emerges from a developmental process that begins early in the life course and remains sensitive to turning points that arise in adolescence and young adulthood. We rely on advancements in criminology, psychology, and behavioral economics to derive several novel hypotheses that are tested against observations from a representative and prospective longitudinal birth cohort of New Zealand residents. Our data cover nearly 40 years of development and include repeated measures of perceptions of punishment risk from age 18 to age 38, affording us the ability to examine the (in)stability in perceptions over the adolescence-to-adulthood transition. Findings and their implications will be discussed.

Authors

• J.C. Barnes, University of Cincinnati

• Peter T. Tanksley, University of Cincinnati

• Terrie E. Moffitt, Duke University