2001/11/01 by DANIEL S. NAGIN, Daniel S. Nagin, GREG POGARSKY +1 · 629 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Certainty #Conviction #Crime Patterns and Interventions #Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis #Criminology #Deterrence (psychology) #Developmental psychology #Impulsivity #Law #Political science #Psychology #Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending #Punishment (psychology) #Social psychology #Variation (astronomy)
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.2001.tb00943.x
published in Criminology 39(4), 865-892 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2001/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
We propose a model that integrates the extralegal consequences from conviction and impulsivity into the traditional deterrence framework. The model was tested with 252 college students, who completed a survey concerning drinking and driving. Key findings include the following: (1) Although variation in sanction certainty and severity predicted offending, variation in celerity did not; (2) the extralegal consequences from conviction appear to be at least as great a deterrent as the legal consequences; (3) the influence of sanction severity diminished with an individual's “present‐orientation”; and (4) the certainty of punishment was far more robust a deterrent to offending than was the severity of punishment.