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American Friends Service Committee. (1971). Struggle forjustice. New York: Hill and Wang.

Ashworth, A. (1992). Sentencing reform structures. InM. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and justice: A review of research(Vol. 16). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Braithwaite, J. (1999). Restorative justice: Assessing opti-mistic and pessimistic accounts. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crimeand justice: A review of research (Vol. 25). Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Engen, R., Gainey, R., Crutchfield, R., & Weis, J. (2003).Discretion and disparity under sentencing guidelines: Therole of departures and structured sentencing alternatives.Criminology, 41, 99–130.

Goodstein, L., & Hepburn, J. (1985). Determinate sentencingand imprisonment: A failure of reform. Cincinnati, OH:Anderson.

Griset, P. (1991). Determinate sentencing: The promise andthe reality of retributive justice. Albany: State Universityof New York Press.

Harris, M. K. (1991). Moving into the new millennium:Toward a feminist vision of justice. In H. Pepinsky &R. Quinney (Eds.), Criminology as peacemaking(pp. 83–97). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Morris, R. (1995). Penal abolition, the practical choice: Apractical manual on penal abolition. Toronto: CanadianScholars’ Press.

Shane-DuBow, S., Brown, A., & Olsen, E. (1985). Sentencingreform in the United States: History, content, and effect.Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Sullivan, D., & Tifft, L. (2001). Restorative justice: Healingthe foundations of our everyday lives. Monsey, NY:Willow Tree.

Taylor, I. (1999). Crime in context: A critical criminology ofmarket societies. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Thomson, D. (1987). Probation in the USA. In J. Harding(Ed.), Probation and the community. London: Tavistock.

Tonry, M. ([1988]1996). Sentencing matters. New York:Oxford University Press.

Tonry, M. (1999). Reconsidering indeterminate and structuredsentencing. In Sentencing & corrections issues for the21st century (Papers from the Executive Sessions onSentencing and Corrections, No. 2). Washington, DC:U.S. Department of Justice.

Tonry, M., & Hatlestad, K. (Eds.). (1997). Sentencing reformin overcrowded times: A comparative perspective.New York: Oxford University Press.

Wright, R. (2002). Counting the cost of sentencing in NorthCarolina, 1980–2000. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime andjustice: A review of research (Vol. 29). Chicago: Universityof Chicago.

Legal Cases

In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967).Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966).

DETERRENCE THEORY

Proponents of deterrence believe that people chooseto obey or violate the law after calculating thegains and consequences of their actions. Overall,however, it is difficult to prove the effectiveness ofdeterrence since only those offenders not deterredcome to the notice of law enforcement. Thus, wemay never know why others do not offend.

GENERAL ANDSPECIFIC DETERRENCE

There are two basic types of deterrence—generaland specific. General deterrence is designed toprevent crime in the general population. Thus, thestate’s punishment of offenders serves as anexample for others in the general population whohave not yet participated in criminal events. It ismeant to make them aware of the horrors of officialsanctions in order to put them off committingcrimes. Examples include the application of thedeath penalty and the use of corporal punishment.

Since general deterrence is designed to deterthose who witness the infliction of pains upon theconvicted from committing crimes themselves,corporal punishment was traditionally, and in someplaces is still, carried out in public so that otherscan witness the pain. Although outlawed in theUnited States, public punishment is still used inother countries. For instance, in August 2001,Nigeria introduced shari’a, or Islamic law, thatallows the application of corporal punishment.That same month, Iran sentenced 20 people to becaned for consuming alcohol. In November 2001,Saudi Arabia lashed 55 youths for harassingwomen. Likewise, Human Rights Watch reportsthat under Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, thosewho violated military orders or committed othercrimes could be punished by amputation of arms,legs, and ears. Finally, in England and the UnitedStates, hangings were once carried out in public.The public and family members were allowed toattend so that they could see what happened tothose who broke the law. Today, some advocatescall for televised executions as a way of deterringmurder.

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Specific deterrence is designed—by the nature ofthe proscribed sanctions—to deter only the individ-ual offender from committing that crime in thefuture. Proponents of specific deterrence alsobelieve that punishing offenders severely will makethem unwilling to reoffend in the future. A drunkdriver, for example, would be deterred from drink-ing and driving because of the unpleasant experi-ence he or she suffered from being arrested, orhaving his or her license taken away or his or her carimpounded. The state must apply enough pain tooffset the amount of pleasure derived from drinking.

EARLY CLASSICALPHILOSOPHERS OF DETERRENCE THEORY

The deterrence theory of punishment can be tracedto the early works of classical philosophers suchas Thomas Hobbes (1588–1678), Cesare Beccaria(1738–1794), and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832).Together, these theorists protested against the legalpolicies that had dominated European thought formore than a thousand years, and against the spiritu-alistic explanations of crime on which they werefounded. In addition, these social contract thinkersprovided the foundation for modern deterrencetheory in criminology.

Thomas Hobbes

In Leviathan, published in 1651, Hobbesdescribed men as neither good nor bad. Unlikereligious philosopher Thomas Aquinas, who insistedthat people naturally do good rather than evil,Hobbes assumed that men are creatures of theirown volition who want certain things and who fightwhen their desires are in conflict. In the Hobbesianview, people generally pursue their self-interests,such as material gain, personal safety, and socialreputation, and make enemies without caring if theyharm others in the process. Since people are deter-mined to achieve their self-interests, the resultis often conflict and resistance without a fittinggovernment to maintain safety.

Hobbes also pointed out that humans are rationalenough to realize that the self-interested nature ofpeople would lead to crime and inevitable conflict

due to the alienation and exclusion of somemembers of society. To avoid this, people agree togive up their own egocentricity as long as everyonedoes the same thing approximately. This is whatHobbes termed the social contract. To avoid war,conflict, and crime, people enter into a social con-tract with the government so that it will protectthem from human predicaments. The role of thestate is to enforce the social contract. Hobbesindicated that if one agrees to the social contract,that individual authorizes the sovereign to use forceto uphold the social contract. But crimes may stilloccur even if after governments perform theirduties. In this case, Hobbes argued that the punish-ment for crime must be greater than the benefit thatcomes from committing the crime. Deterrence isthe reason individuals are punished for violating thesocial contract, and it serves to maintain the agree-ment between the state and the people in the formof a workable social contract.

Cesare Beccaria

Building on the ideals of the social contractphilosophers, in 1764, Cesare Bonesana, MarcheseBeccaria, published his treatise, Dei Delitti e dellePene (On Crimes and Punishments), in which hechallenged the rights of the state to punish crimes.He followed Hobbes and other 18th-centuryEnlightenment writers that laws should be judgedby their propensity to afford the “greatest happinessshared by the greatest number” (Beccaria, 1963,p. 8). Since people are rationally self-interested,they will not commit crimes if the costs of commit-ting crimes prevail over the benefits of engagingin undesirable acts. If the sole purpose of punish-ment is to prevent crime in society, Beccaria (1963)argued, “punishments are unjust when their severityexceeds what is necessary to achieve deterrence”(p. 14). Excessive severity will not reduce crime,in other words, it will only increase crime. InBeccaria’s view, swift and certain punishment arethe best means of preventing and controlling crime;punishment for any other reason is capricious,superfluous, and repressive.

Beccaria and the classical theorists believed thathumans are rational beings with free will to govern

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their own decisions. Indeed, he emphasized thatlaws should be published so that people may knowwhat they represent—their intent, as well as theirpurpose. Basing the legitimacy of criminal sanc-tions on the social contract, Beccaria (1963) calledlaws “the conditions under which men, naturallyindependent, united themselves in society” (p. 11).He was against torture and secret accusations, anddemanded they be abolished. Furthermore, herejected the use of capital punishment and sug-gested that it be replaced by imprisonment.

According to Beccaria, jails should be morehumane and the law should not distinguish betweenthe rich and the poor. Judges should determine guiltand the application of the law, rather than the spiritof the law. Legislators should pass laws that definecrimes and they must provide specific punishmentsfor each crime. To have a deterrent value, punish-ment must be proportionate to the crime committed.Finally, Beccaria argued that the seriousness ofcrimes should be based on the extent of harm doneto society. As an advocate of the pleasure-pain prin-ciple or hedonistic calculus, Beccaria maintainedthat pleasure and pain are the motives of rationalpeople and that to prevent crime, the pain of pun-ishment must outweigh the pleasure received fromcommitting crime.

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham, a contemporary of Beccaria,was one of the most prominent 18th-century intel-lectuals on crime. In 1780, he published An Intro-duction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,whereby he proclaimed his famous principle of util-ity. He argued that “nature has placed mankindunder the governance of two sovereign masters,pain and pleasure” (Bentham, 1948, p. 125).Bentham believed that morality is that which pro-motes “the greatest happiness of the greatestnumber” (Moyer, 2001, p. 26) a phrase that wasalso common to Beccaria. The duty of the state inBentham’s view was “to promote the happiness ofthe society, by punishing and rewarding” (Bentham,1948, p. 189).

Like Beccaria in Italy, Bentham was troubledby the arbitrary imposition of punishment and the

barbarities found in the criminal codes of his timein England. Noting that all punishment is mischief,he maintained, also, that all penalties, per se, areevil unless punishment is used to avert greater evil,or to control the action of offenders. In short, theobject of the law is to widen the happiness of thepeople by increasing the pleasure and lesseningthe pain of the community. Punishment, in excessof what is essential to deter people from violatingthe law, is unjustified.

SEVERITY, CERTAINTY,AND CELERITY OF PUNISHMENT

The theory of deterrence that has developed fromthe work of Hobbes, Beccaria, and Bentham relieson three individual components: severity, certainty,and celerity. The more severe a punishment, it isthought, the more likely that a rationally calculatinghuman being will desist from criminal acts. To pre-vent crime, therefore, criminal law must emphasizepenalties to encourage citizens to obey the law.Punishment that is too severe is unjust, and punish-ment that is not severe enough will not deter crimi-nals from committing crimes.

Certainty of punishment simply means makingsure that punishment takes place whenever a crimi-nal act is committed. Classical theorists such asBeccaria believe that if individuals know that theirundesirable acts will be punished, they will refrainfrom offending in the future. Moreover, their pun-ishment must be swift in order to deter crime. Thecloser the application of punishment is to the com-mission of the offense, the greater the likelihood thatoffenders will realize that crime does not pay.

In short, deterrence theorists believe that ifpunishment is severe, certain, and swift, a rationalperson will measure the gains and losses beforeengaging in crime and will be deterred from vio-lating the law if the loss is greater than the gain.Classical philosophers thought that certainty ismore effective in preventing crimes than the sever-ity of punishment. They rejected torture as a meansof eliciting confessions, and the death penalty asan effective method for punishing murderers andperpetrators of other serious crimes. Capital punish-ment is beyond the just powers of the state.

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MODERN DETERRENCERESEARCH IN CRIMINOLOGY

The deterrence hypothesis remains a key intellec-tual foundation for Western criminal law and crim-inal justice systems. Today, the idea that sanctionsdeter criminals has influenced penal sanctions indeath penalty cases and other areas of criminal sen-tencing. Adherents of the deterrence theory haveconsistently favored policies such as “three strikes”laws, establishment of more prisons, increasedpenalties, longer sentencing severity, certainty ofconviction and sentencing, and the hiring ofmore police officers. Together, these policies wouldcontrol and reduce the recidivism (a return tothe life of crime) of offenders who have beenconvicted, and curtail the participation in crime byfuture offenders.

Yet, despite the merits of the deterrence argu-ment, and until 1968 when criminologists startedagain to test the deterrence hypothesis, empiricalmeasurement of the theory have been scant. Prior tothe 1960s, studies focused only on the philosophi-cal ideas of the deterrence doctrine, its humanitar-ian orientation, and its implications for punishment.One popular research endeavor that actually testedthe deterrence theory in 1968 concluded that homi-cide might be deterred by both certainty and sever-ity of punishment. In research conducted in 1969,criminologist Charles Tittle found support for thetheory and concluded that that the certainty ofimprisonment deters crime but that severity canonly deter crime when certainty of punishment isreasonably guaranteed. Other studies in the 1970shave also challenged the validity of the earlierempirical findings, arguing instead that variationsin police record keeping could account for theresults on certainty.

When it comes to celerity of punishment, priorand current studies have generally avoided its inclu-sion in deterrence measurement. Most important,much of the empirical analysis of the deterrencevalue has been focused on whether capital punish-ment deters potential offenders from engaging inhomicide acts. Collectively, the empirical results ofthe death penalty studies have concluded that thedeath penalty does not deter murder.

CONCLUSION

Because criminal justice policies are sometimesbased on the foundations of the deterrence doc-trine, debates on the deterrence effect of punish-ment continue to be waged in criminologicalresearch. Programs such as boot camps forteenage offenders and “scared straight” programscontinue to rely on the deterrence theory. Acrossthe nation, “get tough” policies are based as wellon the actual and threatened incarceration ofoffenders. In their efforts to have more empiricalsupport, criminologists today are working in thedirection of expanding the deterrence conceptsfrom certainty, severity, and celerity to includeinformal social processes of reward and moralbeliefs.

Since some aspects of deterrence and rationalchoice theories are part of the routine activitiestheory, deterrence theory has been modified andexpanded to include the rational choice perspec-tives. In summary, support for deterrence theory ismuch greater than it has been during the past twodecades. However, research demonstrates that con-temporary criminal justice policies place moreemphasis on the severity of punishment than itplaces on certainty. Death penalty, longer impris-onments, three-strikes laws, mandatory sentencing,and a plethora of other “get tough” policies havenot demonstrated greater deterrent effects of punish-ment than less severe penalties. Indeed, increasesin the severity of punishment, rather than reducecrime, may actually increase it. On the other hand,increases in the certainty of apprehension ofoffenders’ conviction and punishment have beenfound to have possible effects on crime reduction.The current trend toward the use of death penalty inthe United States contradicts Beccaria’s ideas oncertainty and quick punishment.

—Ihekwoaba D. Onwudiwe, Jonathan Odo,and Emmanuel C. Onyeozili

See also Cesare Beccaria; Jeremy Bentham; BootCamps; Capital Punishment; Corporal Punishment;Flogging; History of Prisons; Incapacitation Theory;Just Deserts Theory; Quakers; Rehabilitation Theory;Truth in Sentencing

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Further Reading

Akers, R. L. (2000). Criminological theories. Los Angeles:Roxbury.

Andenaes, J. (1974). Punishment and deterrence. Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press.

Beccaria, C. (1963). On crimes and punishments (introductionby H. Paolucci, Trans.). New York: Macmillan. (Originalwork published 1764)

Bentham, J. (1948). An introduction to the principles of moralsand legislation (with an introduction by W. Harrison,Ed.). New York: Macmillan.

Chiricos, T. G., & Waldo, G. P. (1970). Punishment and crime:An examination of some empirical evidence. SocialProblems, 18(2), 200–217.

Gibbs, J. P. (1968). Crime, punishment and deterrence.Southwestern Social Science Quarterly, 48, 515–530.

Jacoby, J. E. (Ed.). (1994). Classics of criminology. ProspectHeights, IL: Waveland.

Moyer, I. L. (2001). Criminological theory: Traditional andnontraditional voices and themes. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.

Nagin, D. S. (1998). Criminal deterrence research at the outsetof the twenty-first century. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime andjustice: A review of research (pp. 1–42). Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Rennie, Y. (1978). The search for criminal man: A conceptualhistory of the dangerous offender. Lexington, MA:Lexington Books.

Tittle, C. R. (1969). Crime rates and legal sanctions. SocialProblems, 16, 409–423.

Vold, G. B., Bernard, T. J., & Snipes, J. B. (2002). Theoreticalcriminology (5th ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford UniversityPress.

Williams, F. P., & McShane, M. D. (1999). Criminologicaltheory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Wilson, J. Q., & Herrnstein, R. J. (1985). Crime and humannature. New York: Simon & Schuster.

DIIULIO, JOHN J., JR. (1959– )

For at least two decades, from the mid-1980sthrough the early years of the 21st century, politicalscientist John J. DiIulio, Jr., put forth a contentiousbody of academic research, proposals, and policyon prisons and offenders that agitated or assuagedboth conservative and liberal critics of his work.At the beginning of the 21st century, DiIulio turnedto writing about faith-based initiatives and becamea national adviser on faith-based programming forPresident George W. Bush.

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

DiIulio completed undergraduate work at theUniversity of Pennsylvania and graduate work atHarvard University. His first major piece of schol-arship, Governing Prisons (1987), was basedpartially on his dissertation work in political scienceat Harvard, where he studied the Massachusettsprison system. After graduation, DiIulio was hiredat Princeton University, where he quickly developeda national reputation, initially advising liberal groups,such as the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, whichat the time provided significant funding for jail andprison crowding reduction efforts in various states.Subsequently, DiIulio drifted away from liberalgroups, becoming more conservative in his politicsand publications.

Currently, DiIulio is the Frederic Fox LeadershipProfessor at the University of Pennsylvania, aSenior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, workingwith the Jeremiah Project, and a Senior Fellow atthe Brookings Institute, where he cofounded theCenter for Public Management. In addition, he isSenior Counsel with Public/Private Ventures, anemployment and training research and practiceagency located in Philadelphia.

Governing Prisons

DiIulio’s major study, Governing Prisons, exploredthe administration and management of high-custodyprisons in California, Michigan, and Texas. In thisbook, where he argued that little can be achievedwithin prison walls without order, DiIulio advocatedstudying prison “not as a mini-society but as a mini-government.” As with other governments, he pointedout, prisons are subject to “a vigorous system ofinternal and external controls” including “judicial andlegislative oversight, media scrutiny, occupationalnorms and standards, rigorous internal supervisionand inspections, ongoing intradepartmental evalua-tions, and openness to outside researchers” (DiIulio,1987, pp. 235–236) Thus, criminologists should payparticular attention to issues of management in orderto understand the meaning and effect of punishment.

DiIulio followed Governing Prisons in the 1990swith two further books about corrections. In 1990, he

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