Abstract
Justin Pickett and Sean Roche have performed a valuable service to the criminological community in focusing our attention on the key unstated assumption underlining not only the recent article by Nagin, Solow, and Lum [NSL] (2015) but also a host of other recent studies defending the deterrence doctrine the assumption that there is a close connection between objective risks of legal punishment of crime and individual perception of those risks. The fact that NSL left this essential assumption unstated is part of why it was so pernicious, in addition to it almost certainly being wrong. It is harder for readers to recognize dubious assumptions when authors do not explicitly state, nevermind admit the existence of evidence testing strong doubt on them. NSL (2015) were certainly not the first deterrence researchers to make this assumption. All macro-level deterrence researchers, regardless of discipline, have relied on the assumption that actual levels of legal punishment serve as good proxies for perceived levels of punishment. Economists, however, seem to be especially oblivious... Language: en
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