Each year, millions of people are arrested for a variety of different crimes. Many of them are convicted of criminal offenses, receiving sentences of prison, jail, probation, fines, or community service. Although criminal sanctions have a variety of purposes, deterrence (scaring people away from committing crime for fear of punishment) is one of the oldest. Whether the criminal justice system can and does act as a deterrent to criminal behavior is a question that we attempt to answer through criminology research. In this chapter, we will discuss some of the ways this has been done in the past and what this research has found.

While there is some research that supports the idea of the criminal justice system having the potential to deter criminal behavior, there is also a lot of research that shows current practices are not usually very effective or efficient at accomplishing this goal. To complicate matters, another body of research suggests that actions in the criminal justice system (like arrests, convictions, and sanctions) can backfire and actually increase criminal behavior.

Interestingly, beyond the research showing the criminal justice system works or does not work is a third perspective. This theoretical perspective attempts to explain why virtually all criminals ultimately desist from (slow down or completely stop) offending on their own. The majority of people who commit crimes when they are young stop committing crimes when they are in their twenties, and almost all of them stop by the time they reach their forties. Think back to the examples shared in the Chapter Overview. Like deterrence and other theories of societal reaction, this perspective has important implications for the administration of justice. It causes one to question the usefulness of long prison sentences which keep individuals incarcerated well into old age, for example.

The theories covered in this chapter encompass these three broad perspectives. First, the neoclassical perspective – “neo” or “new” looks at the original classical school of criminology from a new perspective. This includes theories that originated with the classical school of criminology we first discussed in Chapter 3 (including rational choice). As a reminder, these theories assume that humans are rational, self-interested, and self-serving, and because of this, punishments they will not enjoy will discourage people from engaging in criminal behavior. In other words, because people are rational, they can be deterred from committing crimes by fear of getting punished.

Then, we will revisit the labeling perspective as discussed in Chapter 4 for a new look at theories that fall within this perspective and make the opposite argument of neoclassical theories. Rather than discourage individuals from committing crime, the argument is that arrests, convictions, and sanctions lead to individuals being labeled as criminals, delinquents, or other undesirable people. Think about the labels used in the examples from the Chapter Overview. These negative labels then cause exclusion, stigma, and further adoption of criminal identities, which then increases criminal behavior. Because both of these perspectives emphasize the role of societal reactions to offending, they are often referred to as theories of societal reaction.

Finally, we will explore a third perspective that looks at criminal behavior over the course of someone’s lifetime. According to this perspective, criminality cannot be understood by studying people at a single point in time or assuming that people are unchanging. Instead, to truly understand criminal behavior, it is important to follow individuals over time. In this manner, we can understand the life events and turning points that affect both short- and long-term patterns of criminal behavior. Again, look back at those examples from the Chapter Overview and how each of their lives would look if you only saw them at one point in time instead of reading about their more complete story. This perspective is referred to as the developmental, life-course perspective because it places emphasis on a person’s individual development and life history.

In this final chapter on criminological theories, we first discuss the neoclassical perspective, highlighting deterrence and rational choice theories. Then, we look at the notion of deterrence alongside labeling theories because they each make opposite predictions about the impact of punishment on criminal behavior. Finally, we highlight the developmental, life-course perspective because of its unique dynamic approach to understanding criminal behavior.