PERCEPTUAL DETERRENCE AMONG ACTIVE RESIDENTIAL BURGLARS - A RESEARCH NOTE

The research reported here is based on a comparison of active residential burglars and a matched control group regarding their willingness to commit a burglary at varying levels of certainty of arrest, severity of penalty, and anticipated reward. Initial analyses revealed that few controls were willing to offend regardless of risk, penalty, or reward and that offenders were not influenced by penalty on its own. Consequently, responses of the offenders only were further analyzed in relation to the impact of risk, penalty, and reward. The results of a logit analysis indicated that both risk of being caught and prospect of increased gain had a significant influence on the offenders' decision making.