Sanction celerity – the blind spot in criminological deterrence research

• In Event: Testing rational explanations of crime

Abstract

Hitherto, the bulk of the vast empirical research on criminal deterrence has focused on the effects of sanction certainty or severity and has been based on samples of young people. Only few inquiries have addressed the impact of the swiftness of punishment, with somewhat mixed results. To counteract this imbalance, we present the findings of a randomized scenario study in which the level of sanction celerity is explicitly varied. The study concerned includes a vignette on the theft of performance-enhancing drugs from a doctor's office. It draws on a large representative sample of adults in Germany (N=3,728). The results do not support the presence of celerity effects. In terms of general deterrence, faster punishment does not achieve what its advocates expect.

Authors

• Helmut Hirtenlehner, Johannes Kepler University Linz

• Sebastian Sattler, University of Bielefeld