Citation

Kohfeld CW. J. Crim. Justice 1983; 11(5): 459-466.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1983, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0047-2352(83)90029-6

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent to crime is commonly held to be a function of the severity and certainty of sanctions. The negative association found between crime rates and lagged clearance rates, which previously has been interpreted as a deterrence effect, is shown in this analysis to be largely an artifact of a misspecified measurement procedure. A more plausible hypothesis that police decision makers are informed and thus respond to changes in crime by allocating resources and making more arrests is supported by evidence from St. Louis data.