| Abstract: | Choice models of deterrence emphasize the importance of including rewards and costs for both crime and noncrime in capturing the process whereby criminal decisions are made. A review of the literature indicates that these models also include probabilities as well as magnitudes for both rewards and costs of crime, but exclude probabilities for law-abiding behavior, treating rewards for noncrime as opportunity costs while eschewing their chance of occurrence. Here we provide experimental data comparing the explanatory power of 2 choice models, one that includes probabilities for rewards and costs for noncrime and another that omits these probabilities altogether. Findings show that the more inclusive model explains approximately twice as much variation in the dependent variable, thereby providing additional support for earlier findings. |
