Certainty Of Punishment Research Articles

The Relevance of Supreme Court Regulation No. 1 of 2020 in Efforts of State Losses Refund through Restorative Justice

The government has moved quickly to find a legal breakthrough related to reducing corruption in Indonesia. One of the efforts made by the government is through the Supreme Court to eradicate corruption is the enactment of Supreme Court Regulation No. 1 of 2020 concerning Guidelines for the Criminalization of Articles 2 and 3 of the Law on the Eradication of Corruption Crimes. The consideration is that the imposition of a crime must be carried out with due regard for the certainty and proportionality of punishment to realize justice based on Pancasila and the Republic of Indonesia's 1945 Constitution. The objectives of the Supreme Court Regulation prioritize victim’s losses to be recovered. Moreover, the regulation proportional benefits in imposing penalties on criminal cases is compatible with the Restorative Justice approach. The restorative justice process is expected to be a legal breakthrough in restoring state finances, with dealing with Criminal Corruption Cases focusing on efforts to restore state finances as a whole rather than just prosecuting the perpetrators. Thus, the purpose of this research is to determine how relevant Supreme Court Regulation No. 1 of 2020 are to efforts to recover state losses through restorative justice. This research employs both a normative and an empirical legal approach. Data were gathered through literature reviews and field studies and analyzed qualitatively. The present study confirmed the author's thoughts about the relevancies of Supreme Court Regulation No. 1 of 2020 to recover state losses through restorative justice as Supreme Court Regulation No. 1 of 2020 play a role as a law enforcement's main element as a legal substance.

Corporate governance regulation: a practice theory perspective

ABSTRACT Employing Bourdieu’s practice theory, this paper explores factors that influence corporate executives’ behaviour towards corporate governance regulation. Drawing insights from a weak institutional environment (Nigeria) and relying on a qualitative research methodology (semi-structured interviews with 31 executives), this research uncovers how nine nuanced situational and cultural field factors determine executives’ regulatory response to the severity of punishment, the certainty of penalties, and the cost–benefit compliance considerations. The study further explains how sequential rationalisation between the severity and certainty of punishment contributes to the regulatory apathy that executives exhibit. Theoretically, this study demonstrates how practice theory components (habitus, capital, and field) blend to establish executives’ regulatory practice.

Deterring the Drunk Driver: An Examination of Conditional Deterrence and Self-Reported Drunk Driving

This project uses a representative U.S. population sample and Generalized Structural Equation Modeling (GSEM) to explore the deterrence of driving under the influence (DUI) and it’s moderation by the differential deterrability of problem and non-problem drinkers. As hypothesized, the results indicate that personal and vicarious experiences with punishment and punishment avoidance were significant predictors of punishment certainty and self-reported DUI. Significant heterogeneity in both the formulation of perceived certainty of punishment and the relationship between this perception and DUI also exists between problem and non-problem drinkers. Most notably, certainty of punishment was a more robust negative predictor of DUI offending for problem drinkers, and prior punishment appears to have little effect on perceptions of punishment certainty for problem drinkers.

Natural Disasters and the Effect of Celerity on Criminal Case Outcomes: A Natural Experiment in Kings County

Using case-level data, this study tests whether an increase in average crime-to-disposition time for felony arrests affects case outcomes. These outcomes are the likelihood of no-conviction, the likelihood of downgrading during the case disposition process (regardless of whether the case resulted in a conviction or no conviction), and the likelihood of an incarceration sentence. On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy produced extreme weather conditions in the greater New York City area, including Kings County. For felonies committed during the two-week period (October 28, 2012–November 10, 2012), Kings County experienced, on average, a 20.2% increase (34.3 days) in crime-to-disposition time. This increase provides an instrumental variable (IV) to test the effect of crime-to-disposition time on criminal case outcomes. Neither the hurricane aftermath nor a crime-to-disposition delay had any significant effect on the likelihood of incarceration, the likelihood of no-conviction, or the likelihood of downgrading. As a theoretical matter, the IV estimates suggest that reduced celerity (operationalized by a 20% increase in case processing time) does not affect the severity of punishment (operationalized by incarceration), the certainty of punishment (operationalized by the likelihood of no-conviction), or case processing complexity (operationalized by the likelihood of downgrading).

The certainty–offending relationship as a function of a nation's free market cultural ethos

The current study sought to integrate aspects of classic strain and institutional anomie theories with concepts from deterrence and rational choice theories for application in a large sample of European respondents. Participants were 52,458 individuals (55% female, average age = 48 years) from the fifth round of the 27-country European Social Survey. Each participant rated their involvement in three relatively minor offenses (false insurance claims, buying stolen property, and traffic offenses) over the past five years along with their perceived certainty of getting caught and punished should they commit one or more of these prohibited acts. Each country's total 2010 Index of Economic Freedom score was also included in the study as a level 2 variable in a two-level multilevel modeling analysis. Consistent with predictions, participants from countries with higher Index of Economic Freedom scores displayed a significantly stronger connection between certainty of punishment and involvement in minor offending than participants from lower Index of Economic Freedom countries. An additional individual-level variable, the marketized mentality, was also included in the analysis and while it correlated with minor offending, it failed to interact with the Index of Economic Freedom or alter free market cultural ethos moderation of the certainty-offending relationship. These findings suggest that individuals living in a country with a strong free market cultural ethos are more apt to incorporate rational choice principles like certainty into their crime-related decisions than individuals residing in a country with a weaker free market cultural ethos.

A hybrid discrete choice model to understand the effect of public policy on fare evasion discouragement in Bogotá's Bus Rapid Transit

• The study was carried out with a sample of actual evaders, which is unique in fare evasion studies. • Is critical to understand which observable and non-observable factors motivate individuals to evade fares. • Age, the evasion records, and some personality traits influence the fare evasion behavior. • Contributes with a novel application of discrete choice models to study fare evaders behavior. • Draw relevant policy implications for a large public transport system in South America. Fare evasion is currently a significant concern for public transport systems worldwide. Evasion causes huge economic losses to operators and cities, but also negatively influences the system’s security perceptions. Despite its importance, there are few efforts to understand which observable and non-observable factors motivate individuals to evade fares in a public transport system. Most studies dealing with fare evasion evaluate the effectiveness of several policies, quantify the amount of evasion, or correlate fare evasion with system satisfaction using aggregate data. This paper proposes a Hybrid Discrete Choice model to understand current evaders’ behavior considering sociodemographic, fare evasion records, trip characteristics, user satisfaction with the transport system, and perceptual indicators. The model was estimated using a unique stated preferences survey applied to 324 fare evaders of Transmilenio, the Bogotá (Colombia) Bus Rapid Transit system, in mid-2019. This is an interesting case study because, in 2018, the evasion rate was measured for the first time and it was discovered that evaders comprised approximately 15% of their users on weekdays. The contribution of this research is twofold. First, results highlight the importance of considering observable and latent variables to understand individual behavior in examining fare evasion in similar public transport systems. Age and the evasion records resulted in being the most important observable variables in our case study. Latent variables suggest that the more the user is satisfied with the transport system, the less likely is to evade fares. However, we found that personality traits, such as individual rule-unconsciousness, moderate the effect of satisfaction on the evasion behavior. Second, our results provide evidence that the discussion between certainty and severity of punishment on fare evasion should not necessarily be centered on whether to exacerbate one of these factors. A combination of both, however, should reduce the recidivism rate.

Deterrence of Punitive Measures on Collusive Bidding in the Construction Sector

Collusive bidding has been a deep-seated issue in the construction market for a long time. The strategies implemented by bid riggers are deliberate, interactive, and complex, suggesting that antitrust authorities have difficulty preventing collusive behaviors. Based on game payoff matrixes, this study proposes a system dynamics (SD) model to present the deterrence of punitive measures, namely the certainty of punishment (CoP) and the severity of punishment (SoP), on regular bidders’ to-collude decision-making. Data were collected from the Chinese construction industry to test the proposed SD model. While the model was supported, the results indicate that the CoP has a greater impact than the SoP on deterring regular bidders from making to-collude decisions. Furthermore, these two punitive measures cannot be replaced by each other, given the same deterrence effects. Thus, the study demonstrates the usefulness of deterrence theory to inhibit collusive bidding in the construction sector. It also sheds some light on the formulation of competition policy from the perspective of deterrence.

Risk perceptions and DUI decisions of drivers in different legal environments: New evidence on differential deterrence from a Chinese sample

ObjectivesResearch on the deterrent effects of driving-under-the-influence (DUI) laws has been limited in China, which has criminalized drunk driving since May 2011 yet the effectiveness of this legislation remains unclear. Primary studies are needed to confirm whether government reports of reductions in DUI rates since then can indeed match changes in driver perceptions of DUI risk, and if so, be attributed to what specific components of the DUI legal environments. Based on the classical theory of deterrence and recent advances in differential deterrence, this study adopted a conjoint experiment from a previous US study that simulated the decision-making process of potential drinking drivers, and evaluated how DUI sanctions and enforcement practices contributed differentially to the three components of deterrence (i.e., certainty, swiftness, and severity of punishment). Key individual characteristics and nonlegal factors, as suggested by differential deterrence research to moderate the impact of DUI laws, were also considered. MethodsA Web-based conjoint experiment was conducted on a sample of 109 college students from two major universities in Shenzhen, China. Participants were randomly assigned to blocks of hypothetical scenarios composed of different levels of DUI enforcement and penalties, and asked to choose from a pair of scenarios each time, in which they were more likely to drink and drive. They also answered questions adapted from previous studies that measured key individual factors in relation to differential deterrence, such as informal sanction threat, moral inhibition, and personal and vicarious experiences with punishment. Such individual differences were accounted for in both a conventional two-level mixed logit aggregate model and a Hierarchical Bayes model. ResultsConsistent with prior findings in Western countries, DUI enforcement intensity, was found to be the strongest deterrent to potential drinking drivers in China. License suspension, as an administrative punishment that can be swiftly implemented, was also effective in deterring the Chinese drivers, who however were much more likely to fear the revocation of their licenses rather than a 6-month suspension only. Meanwhile, they were notably deterred by the possibility of being in jail for 1–3 days, let alone for 1–2 months. Altogether, enforcement, license suspension and jail penalties accounted for more than 75 percent of attribute impact on drivers’ decision to drink and drive, whereas fine penalty and license points had almost no effect. On the other hand, nonlegal factors such as informal sanction threat and vicarious experiences were found to have significantly moderated the deterrent effects of DUI laws. ConclusionsOverall, this study quantified the unique effects of perceived certainty, swiftness, and severity of DUI punishment in the Chinese context, and supported the usefulness of conjoint experiments for examining risk perceptions and DUI decisions in different legal environments. It also provided new empirical evidence on differential deterrence and pointed out the need of determining for which subsets of individuals and under what conditions can legal sanctions successfully deter potential offenders. Such research will help researchers and policy makers better understand the role of deterrence, for more effective policy development related to DUI as well as other important traffic safety issues.

Efficient Institutions and Effective Deterrence: On Timing and Uncertainty of Formal Sanctions.

Economic theory suggests that the deterrence of deviant behavior is driven by a combination of severity and certainty of punishment. This paper presents the first controlled experiment to study a third important factor that has been mainly overlooked: the swiftness of formal sanctions. We consider two dimensions: the timing at which the uncertainty about whether one will be punished is dissolved and the timing at which the punishment is actually imposed, as well as the combination thereof. By varying these dimensions of delay systematically, we find a surprising non-monotonic relation with deterrence: either no delay (immediate resolution and immediate punishment) or maximum delay (both resolution and punishment as much as possible delayed) emerge as most effective at deterring deviant behavior and recidivism. Our results yield implications for the design of institutional policies aimed at mitigating misconduct and reducing recidivism.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at doi:10.1007/s11166-021-09352-x.

영업비밀 침해에 대한 형사적 규제 실태 연구 – 처벌의 확실성을 중심으로 -

이 연구의 목적은 영업비밀의 침해사건에 대한 판결 동향을 분석하고, 처벌의 확실 성 제고를 위한 방안을 제시하고자 함에 있다. 연구목적을 달성하기 위하여 최근 3년간 영업비밀 침해사건의 제1심 판결문을 전량 입수하여 분석을 실시한 결과, 다음과 같은 경향을 확인할 수 있었다. 첫째, 징역형에 대한 집행유예의 비중이 파격적으로 높았다. 둘째, 영업비밀에 대한 엄격한 기준의 적용으로 인해 영업비밀 침해사건의 무죄율이 일 반 형사사건들에 비해 훨씬 높았다. 셋째, 양벌 규정에 의해 처벌되는 대상임에도 불구 하고 기소되지 않은 법인이 절반 이상이었다. 이상의 분석 결과를 통해 영업비밀 침해 범죄에 대한 처벌의 확실성이 매우 낮은 수준임을 확인할 수 있었다. 이와 같은 결과를 바탕으로 영업비밀 침해범죄에 대한 억제효과를 제고하기 위한 형사사법적 개선방안은 다음과 같다. 첫째, 영업비밀 침해범죄에 대한 양형기준의 권고형량을 조속히 상향 조 정하여야 한다. 둘째, 영업비밀 침해 범죄의 심각성에 대한 일선 법관들의 인식 변화가 필요하다. 셋째, 양형기준에 적시된 요소만을 기준으로 정상참작 여부를 판단하여야 하겠다. 넷째, 수사당국에서는 예측 가능하고 명확한 양벌규정의 적용 기준을 마련하기를 권고한다.

The Impact of Ambiguity-induced Error in Offender Decision-making: Evidence from the Field

Objectives: To invoke behavioral economics theories of ambiguity in the context of offender decision-making, and to test the impact of ambiguity in punishment certainty on offender decisions. Methods: We leverage a quasi-experimental condition among a sample of drunk driving arrestees that are tested for alcohol use and subject to mandatory brief incarceration for a violation. The treatment condition relaxes a zero-tolerance alcohol rule, thereby introducing design-based ambiguity surrounding the certainty of punishment. We use Mahalanobis matching and propensity score weighting methods to estimate the impact of ambiguity on violations. We then interrogate this finding with complementary sensitivity analyses. Results: When facing the ambiguity condition participants are 27–28 percentage points (84–93 percent) more likely to violate program conditions after 30 days of supervision. We demonstrate that a statistical difference in violations due to ambiguity is still detectible at 90 and 180 days of supervision. These results are robust to alternative specifications and falsification tests. Conclusions: This study is the first to examine the impact of ambiguity on criminal justice program compliance using a quasi-experiment from the field. We further demonstrate the unintended costs to persons under supervision and jurisdictions of laxity in program design, which are applicable across criminal justice domains.

Hospital Staff's Adherence to Information Security Policy: A Quest for the Antecedents of Deterrence Variables.

Information security has come to the forefront as an organizational priority since information systems are considered as some of the most important assets for achieving competitive advantages. Despite huge capital expenditures devoted to information security, the occurrence of security breaches is still very much on the rise. More studies are thus required to inform organizations with a better insight on how to adequately promote information security. To address this issue, this study investigates important factors influencing hospital staff’s adherence to Information Security Policy (ISP). Deterrence theory is adopted as the theoretical underpinning, in which punishment severity and punishment certainty are recognized as the most significant predictors of ISP adherence. Further, this study attempts to identify the antecedents of punishment severity and punishment certainty by drawing from upper echelon theory and well-acknowledged international standards of IS security practices. A survey approach was used to collect 299 valid responses from a large Taiwanese healthcare system, and hypotheses were tested by applying partial least squares-based structural equation modeling. Our empirical results show that Security Education, Training, and Awareness (SETA) programs, combined with internal auditing effectiveness are significant predictors of punishment severity and punishment certainty, while top management support is not. Further, punishment severity and punishment certainty are significant predictors of hospital staff’s ISP adherence intention. Our study highlights the importance of SETA programs and internal auditing for reinforcing hospital staff’s perceptions on punishment concerning ISP violation, hospitals can thus propose better internal strategies to improve their staff’s ISP compliance intention accordingly.

High-Risk Deviant Decisions: Does Neutralization Still Play a Role?

Extant research has shown that neutralization processes can enable potential IS security policy violators to justify their behavior and overcome the deterrence effect of sanctions in order to engage in unethical behaviors. However, such sanctions are typically moderate and not career ending. We test the boundary conditions of this theory by evaluating whether neutralization plays a role in overcoming the impact of extreme levels of deterrence. We extend the Siponen and Vance (2010) framework within a professional context that assigns extreme sanctions to violators. Using the scenario-based factorial survey method common in IS security research, we collected data from future auditors who understand these extreme sanctions. We test the reasons that auditors may use to form intentions to falsify information concerning an information security issue with a company’s accounting information system, thereby jeopardizing data integrity and security by modifying working papers to hide irregularities and, by doing so, violating their professional standards, which could result in career-ending sanctions. We empirically validated and tested the theoretical model. Our results show that sanctions play an important role in reducing employees’ intentions to violate policy but that, even under extreme boundary conditions, employees might seek to rationalize their unethical behavior by denying responsibility for their actions through, for example, arguing that their supervisors pressured them into performing the violations. We also establish that messages heightening the awareness and perceptions of the certainty and severity of organizational punishment are likely to attenuate such deviant behaviors. We discuss the implications of these findings and suggest future avenues for research.

Are the Criminogenic Effects of Incarceration Mediated by a Change in Criminal Thinking or a Change in Perceived Certainty?

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether a change in criminal thinking or a change in perceived certainty mediates the putative criminogenic effect of incarceration. A path analysis of 1,170 male delinquents revealed that incarceration prior to age 19 produced a negative rather than positive effect on offending behavior at age 20, although it did predict an increase in proactive criminal thinking (PCT) from age 18 to age 19. PCT, in turn, predicted a rise in past year offending. Perceived certainty of punishment, on the other hand, failed to mediate the effect of incarceration on future offending.

Carolyn Strange, Discretionary Justice: Pardon and Parole in New York from the Revolution to the Depression

At least since Caesare Beccaria’s time, critics have attacked the power of a sovereign or head of state to pardon or reduce the punishment of people convicted of crimes. They charge that clemency diminishes the certainty of punishment and places the ruler outside of the rule of law. Carolyn Strange’s general theme is this quest for certainty in criminal justice and retention of discretionary punishment. Certainty of punishment within the rule of law was a major principle of Enlightenment thou...

Body-worn cameras' effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review.

Body-worn cameras' effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review.

Drunk driving and deterrence: exploring the reconceptualized deterrence hypothesis and self-reported drunk driving

ABSTRACT This article partially examines Stafford and Warr’s reconceptualized model of deterrence by investigating the relationship between punishment, punishment avoidance, perceived certainty and severity of punishment, and self-reported driving under the influence (DUI). Generalized Structural Equation Modeling (GSEM) was conducted using self-report data from a nationally representative telephone survey of the general population. As hypothesized, experiences with punishment were positively related to perceptions of certainty of punishment, and increased punishment avoidance is related to decreased perceptions of punishment certainty and self-reported DUI. Although perceived certainty of punishment is negatively related to DUI, perceptions of punishment severity were positively related to self-reported DUI. Results also indicate that personal and vicarious experiences are significantly related to perceptions of certainty and severity of punishment and self-reported DUI. With the exception of perceptions of punishment severity, the findings are largely supportive of the theory. While the literature rarely examines perceptions of severity of punishment, some suggestions for future research are posited. The findings also suggest that deterrence may operate differently for those with alcohol addiction problems. These results considerably add to the scarce research that explores predictors of perceptions of punishment certainty and severity and the indirect path between these predictors and self-reported DUI.

Toward Integrated Processual Theories of Crime: Assessing the Developmental Effects of Executive Function, Self-Control, and Decision-Making on Offending

Research on executive function indicates that self-control stems partially from normative brain development. Extant research has also provided evidence of an association between self-control and offender decision-making. Yet, to date, there has been no attempt to account for these associations within one model. The current study used structural equation modeling to estimate the links between executive function, self-control, moral disengagement, and perceptions of risk and reward in a sample of male offenders ( n = 1,170) from the Pathways to Desistance data. The results indicated that executive function affects self-control, which subsequently influences perceptions of offending and offending behavior, supporting the integration of these concepts under one processual model. Moreover, moral disengagement, certainty of punishment, and rewards of offending mediated the majority of the effects of self-control on offending. The results from the current study advance theories in the life-course/developmental perspective and inform policy toward a developmentally oriented juvenile justice system.

Stated choices of environmental managers: The role of punishment

This study explores the roles of enforcement in explaining management choices tied to regulatory compliance. Within this exploration, the study pursues two research objectives. First, it discerns the separate effects of punishment certainty and punishment severity on compliance decisions; this task is generally difficult especially since it requires constructing measures of the beliefs held by individuals or regulated businesses. Second, the study compares the two effects. The study’s most important contribution is to investigate these two issues using stated choice scenarios posed to environmental management professionals working at businesses operating within the Clean Water Act regulatory framework. Results reveal that regulated facilities respond to increases in fine size and fine likelihood with equal sensitivity.

Death Penalty or Victim Centric Justice System?

For past few days, since the Supreme Court has awarded death penalty to four convicts, the media headlines are screaming for the blood of rapists who brutally gang-raped Nirbhaya or Jyoti Singh on 16th December 2012. Heated discussions are going on regarding the execution of convicts where several experts and activists argue against death penalty, while there are those who are in favour of it. However, what is ignored in this intensive debate is the fact that it is essential to ensure the certainty of punishment rather than stressing on the severity of punishment. Secondly, this debate divert attention from the plight of victims, survivors and their families who are the crux of the criminal justice system. This essay suggests that the need is to focus on the victim-centric approach. Making violent men accountable for their criminal action, guaranteeing fast track quality hearing, having proper witness and victim protection programs in place, identifying rights of victims, rehabilitation and safety plans for victims of violence and above all eliminating rape culture are some of the measures that are required to ensure that justice is done effectively and efficiently.