RECONCEPTUALIZING DETERRENCE - AN EMPIRICAL-TEST OF PERSONAL AND VICARIOUS EXPERIENCES

In a recent article, Stafford and Warr (1993) presented a reconceptual ization of the deterrence doctrine where general deterrence is taken t o be the result ofpersons' vicarious experiences. Such vicarious exper iences include, among other things knowledge of the criminal activity of others and the consequences or lack of consequences of that activit y. Specific deterrence is taken to be the result of persons' own perso nal experiences. These personal experiences include, among other thing s, own experience with punishment and punishment avoidance. In their r econceptualized deterrence theory, persons may concurrently be subject to both general and specific deterrent effects, some persons may be a ffected more by one type of deterrence than the other and the two type s of deterrent effects may reinforce one another In addition, they arg ue that their version of deterrence theory promises some insight into current controversies in the literature. In this article, the authors first review and expand Stafford and Warr's reconceptualization of det errence, and then subject some central hypotheses to empirical test. A lthough the authors' data are modest and cannot test all of the implic ations of Stafford and Warr's argument, the findings indicate that Sta fford and Warr's reconceptualization promises to be a fruitful line of inquiry for those interested in the development of deterrence theory.