DETERRENCE, OPPORTUNITY, AND CHOICE

Traditional studies of deterrence have focused on punishment with less regard for the rewards of both crime and noncrime. Influenced by work in economics and behavioral psychology, more recent studies have depa rted from tradition by incorporating rewards for crime. To this extent , they should be regarded as advances over the more traditional approa ches. Notwithstanding these advances, variations in both the probabili ty and magnitude of reward for noncrime have not been systematically i ncluded in these more recent theories of choice. In an attempt to dete rmine whether opportunities for noncrime are either central or trivial to the criminal decision-making process, the present study fitted two alternative models to experimental data involving risk-taking: (a) th e economic utility model employed by Piliavin, Gather, Thornton, and M atsueda (1986) in their study of criminal choice; and (b) the satisfac tion balance model developed by Gray and Tallman (1984). Results showe d that while both models explained significant amounts of variation in the dependent variable, the Gray-Tallman model provided a substantial ly better fit of the data. Despite limitations inherent in experimenta l studies as, for example, limitations surrounding the issue of extern al validity, the findings strongly suggest that opportunities for nonc rime are as important as rewards and costs for crime in the process by which criminal decisions are made.