AJCJ Vol. X, No.2 (1986)

PERCEPTIONAL FOUNDATIONS OF DETERRENCE:

THE CASE OF PROSTITUTION

by

Reed Adams

Ronald Vogel*l

The authors conducted a survey to determine

community perceptions about the certainty,

celerity, and severity of punishment with regards

to the crime of prostitution. A representative

random sample of Mecklenburg County, which includes

Charlotte, North Carolina, was taken and 850

individuals responded. The results revealed that

(i) citizens perceive sanctions against prostitution violations as being applied only

infrequently; (2) most respondents perceive the

time from violation to arrest as being relatively

short but slower as the offenders proceed through

the system, and (3) the severity of punishment is

not perceived as being harsh. The authors argue

that the low likelihood of apprehension, both

actual and perceived, plus the mild sanctions may

partially account for prostitution's continued

survival.

Criminologists have long argued that the certainty, severity, and

celerity of punishment are causally related to the rate of criminal

behavior (Beccaria, 1963; Bentham, 1962). Moreover, in recent years

the theory of deterrence has received increasing amounts of attention

from both theorists and researchers. Yet, as evidenced by the

National Academy of Science's (Blumstein, Cohen and Nagin, 1978)

review of the empirical and theoretical literature on deterrence, the

theory remains stubbornly unsubstantiated despite the accumulation of

a large number of empirical studies addressed to deterrence issues.

Some writers have argued that fundamental problems in past

research on deterrence have involved either the failure to address

*Criminal Justice Department,

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

131

celerity ((Selke, 1983) reports there is "nothing in the published

literature" (p. 31)) or the propensity to ignore the theory's

psychological thrust. Also, the work of such writer as Erickson,

Gibbs, and Jensen (1977) suggests that the perceived properties of

punishment may be of greater importance that the objective properties.

Moreover, the theory indicates that the perceptions of the theories'

variables occur causally and temporally prior to relevant objective

events. Selke (1983) interprets Erickson's, et al. (1977) work as

suggesting that "public perceptions and knowledge about sanctioning

levels and probabilities of arrest may be more important in the

deterrence process than the actual certainty or severity of

punishment" (p. 36). Other research (Parker and Grasmich, 1979)

indicates that perceptions relevant to deterrence are based on

individual personal contacts with the objective reality of crime.

Such studies lend credence to the notion that perceptions may be

studied as indicators of group characteristics and as a legitimate

phenomenon in their own right.

Recent empirical and theoretical works have identified the

process of perception as a critical element in deterrence theory

(Waldo and Chiricos, 1972; Paternoster, Saltzman, Chiricos and Waldo,

1982 and 1983; Gibbs, 1975; Anderson, 1979). These works have

creatively formulated investigations of the elements of deterrence. It

should be noted this paper is not a report of such a test, but rather

a measure of the degree to which the perceptions of a relationship

between specified behavior and punishment appear to exist. Such

measurements are needed for two reasons. Other researchers, in their

attempts to measure the deterrence contingency effect, have questioned

subjects about both their perceptions of the contingency and their

criminal behavior. It is reasonable to assume that subjects may be

sensitive to questions about their criminal behavior in ways that

impinge upon their total range of responses. Also, accurate measures

of perceptions of the deterrence contingency are needed so that the

stability of such perception can be estimated.

Thus, we have concluded that significant gaps in the body of

empirical research on deterrence involves the concept of perception,

particularly perception of celebrity. This paper will address

perceptions of criminal justice sanctions applied within a

circumscribed research framework to acts of prostitution.

Prostitution

Prostitution remains, thousands of years after it began, a social

issue of great interest. Yet, little is known of the deterrence

impact of criminal sanctions on prostitution behavior or of the

consistency between public attitudes and public policy. It is

reasonable to argue that "public attitudes" may be taken as one

132

indicator of the perceptions identified as an element of deterrence

theory. Thus, "public attitudes", when measured, may serve several

important functions. This paper is an effort to describe contemporary

public attitudes regarding the application of criminal sanctions

against prostitution behavior. By so doing, it is hoped that the

present nature of such attitudes and the relationship of these

attitudes to deterrence theory may become more clearly known. Also, it

is hoped the description of public attitudes may be shown to have

implications for the specification of our contemporary value structure

involving victimless crimes.

The Research Question

The theory indicates that a high level of perception of

certainty, celerity, and substantial severity of punishment associated

with a proscribed act will be negatively associated with the

occurrence of the act itself. Thus, prior to any consideration of the

deterrent effect, researchers must demonstrate that those being

deterred perceive the contingency specified by the theory. Moreover, general deterrence involves perceptions held by the general

population. Therefore, this investigation concerns perceptions held

by the public at large of the punishment contingencies operating in

the case of one victimless crime.

METHOD

A simple random sample of individuals living in the Charlotte,

N.C. metropolitan area and possessing telephones was drawn. A sample

of 850 subjects, adequate (Krijcie and Morgan, 1970) for

generalization to the population, was used. The random digit dialing

method (Tuchfarber and Klecka, 1976) was employed. The process

employed the selection of additional random telephone numbers as

substitutes for nonresponders and only residential telephone numbers

were used. Only adults were interviewed. The individual answering the telephone who was eighteen years of age or older, rather than any

specific individual within the household, was used as the subject of

each interview. Thus, the reader should be cautious in extrapolation

to other groups because of the lack of control over the individuals

selected within the household and the procedure of sampling without

any measure of the nature of those individuals refusing to be

interviewed. However, when demographic characteristics describing the

850 individuals included in the sample were compared with those of the

Mecklenburg County, N. C. population, the correspondence between the

two sets of figures was such as to indicate generalizations to the population from the sample statistics were reasonable. Finally, the

response rate was 60 % and the noncontact rate was 37% (Frey, 1984:

38-42). That comparison is described in Table I.

133

Table 1

POPULATION AND SAMPLE COMPARED *:

DIFFERENCE OF PROPORTIONS

Attribute 1983 1983

Population Sample Z**

Be

20-24 9.4% 14.1% -4.734**

25-34 17.9% 30.1% -9.247**

35-44 12.4% 19.9% -6.645**

45-54 10.7% 12.1% -1.291

55-59 5.0% 5.2% -0.210

60-64 5.8% 4.4% 1.856

65-74 5.7% 6.5% -0.920

75+ 3.3% 2.7% 1.032

Marital

Status

Married 44.1% 58.1% -8.204**

Single 21.9% 27.2% -3.712"* Divorced 5.6% 5.9% -0.346

Widowed 5.4% 5.4% -0.002

Separated 3.5% 2.2% 2.025

Sex

Male 47.8% 42.6% 3.012"*

Female 52.2% 55.9% -2.121

Race

Non-white 28.8% 25.6% 2.056

"1983 Population was extrapolated from 1950-1980 census data using HP-

97 regressions program #1977D for best fit among 4 models, programmed by Gary Tenzer.

**A Z value of 2.58 is needed for a .01 level of significance for a 2- tailed test.

134

Measurement

The interview schedule was short, relevant to the issue under

study, and non-threatening to the subjects. Participation was

voluntary. The interviewers were graduate and undergraduate criminal

justice students trained by one of the authors.

The interviewers requested that respondents indicate how many

persons, of the next 100 violating laws against prostitution, would be

caught. The next question asked the respondents to indicate how many

persons, of the number they indicated would be "caught", would then be

"arrested." Then they were asked to indicate how many, of those

"arrested," would be "convicted" or "plead guilty." Respondents were

also asked to indicate the time from violation to arrest, and from

conviction to sentence. Finally, respondents were asked to indicate

their expectation regarding the severity of the sentence received by

first, second, and third time offenders. Information regarding

demographic characteristics of the respondents and their opinions

regarding other aspects of prostitution were also requested.

RESULTS

rCertainty

Citizens perceive sanctions against prostitution violations as

being applied only infrequently. However, they perceive the sequence

of events comprising the criminal justice process as more likely to

involve sanctions than the behavior itself for which the sanction is

"being caught". Our respondents perceived an average of 18.65

offenders (SD=18.61) caught among those 100 individuals committing

offenses, 11.78 (SD=14.58) of those caught as being arrested, and 6.36

(SD=II.25) arrested as being convicted. Thus, the respondents saw

only a few violators being caught, but once known to the police it

was believed that more often than (19%) not, sanctions would be

applied (63% arrested and 54% convicted). It should also be noted

that the range of perceptions of the probability of sanction application was wide.

Celerity

Most (47%) respondents perceived the time from violation to

arrest to be "short," while 27% perceived it to be a "medium"

length of time, and 19% felt it was a "long" time period. The

respondents were asked to specify their perceptions in terms of

hours, days, weeks, or months. Of those specifying a time period, 31%

perceived the arrest occurring within hours, 19% felt it would happen

135

within a week or less, while the remainder felt it would take months

or year to happen.

When time from conviction to punishment was considered, a

slightly different picture emerged. Twenty-five percent of the

respondents felt punishment would be applied in a "short" period of

time, 39% felt it would be a "medium" period, while 28% saw it as

taking a "long" time. In specific time frames, most (51%) thought

the process would take one or two months, a few (16%) felt it would

take hour or days, and 33% felt it would take months or years.

Severity

Respondents were asked to indicate what would happen to

individuals arrested for the first, second, and third time,

chosing from 6 possible outcomes. Their perceptions of criminal

justice outcomes was in the predicted direction (see Table 2).

Subjects perceived the prior record of offenders as being

positively associated with severity of sentence.

Controls

The analyses reported above were repeated for seven

categories of respondents: race, age, religion, education,

academic degree, marital status, sex and belief that prostitution

should be legalized or not. No meaningful differences among the

groups were found.

Conclusion

A consideration of prostitution must explain why most women are

not prostitutes, and the tenacity of the phenomenon. Deterrence

theory predicts that individuals will not violate prostitution laws

because they perceive a contingency indicating that punishing

sanctions will be applied should they violate the law. The present

survey of public attitudes indicated that the perception of the

contingency involves a low likelihood of apprehension but once

apprehended, a substantial likelihood of fast punishment, increasing

in severity for repeat offenders.

Probably, other sanctions and other rewards/punishment

contingencies operate to prevent most women from becoming

prostitutes. However, the low likelihood of apprehension, both actual

and perceived, plus the mild sanctions may account in part for

prostitution's continued survival over time and place. Also, it

cannot be discounted that prostitution may have been perceived

by the respondents as a member of a class of sanctioned acts, and

136

TABLE 2

SEVERITY OF PUNISHMENT BY FREQUENCY OF EVENT

Warn/ Prison Prison Prison

Release Fine Probation lyr. 2yr. 2yr. Total

ist Time

Offenders 402 166 239 14 6 5 832

2nd Time

Offenders 62 304 268 157 16 18 825

3rd Time

Offenders 16 177 118 332 102 72 817

Total 480 647 625 503 124 95 2474

X 2 = 1187, df = i0, p .001

gamma = .64435

served as a basis for their generalization about the operation of the

criminal justice system. Here, subject's perceptions indicate that

the likelihood of swift, sure, and severe sanction were actually

greater than that which occurs in reality. Thus, we have concluded

that the evidence does not preclude the possibility that the

perceptions necessary for the operation of a deterrent effect are

present in an urban population not unlike other urban populations

found throughout the United States.

Footnotes

(i) The authors are grateful to Harold Vetter and Christine Rasche

for thoughtful suggestions regarding many aspects of this paper.

Particular indebtedness accrues to Sandy, an anonymous "Lady of

the Evening", without whose insights and encouragement the

project, of which this paper is one part, would not have been

possible. Robert Lassiter, Jr. also provided helpful support.

137

(2) The Urban Institute of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte provided the computer generated random telephone numbers

and instructions on their use.

References

Anderson, L. (1979). The deterrent effect of criminal sanctions:

Reviewing the literature. Law and Power: Essays in the

Sociology of Law. P. Brantinghamand J. Kress, Ed.

Beccaria, C. (1963). On Crimes and Punishments. Indianapolis, IN:

Bobs Merrill.

Bentham, J. (1962). The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Vol.

Broorin~ Edition. New York: Russell and Russell.

Blumstein, A., Cohen J. & Nagin D., (1978). Deterrence and

Incapacitation: Estimating the effects of criminal sanctions on

crime rates. Washington, D.C. National Academy of Sciences.

Bryan, J. H. (1966). Occupational idealogies and individual

attitudes of Call Girls. Social Problems. 13 (4), p. 441-

50.

Frey, J. H. (1983). Survey Research by Telephone. Beverly Hills: Sage

Publications.

Gibbs, J. (1995). Crime, Punishment and Deterrence. New York:

Elsevier.

Krijcie, R. & Morgan, D. (1970). Determining sample size for research

activities. Educational and Psychological Measurement.

30: 607-610.

Paternoster, R., Saltzman, L., Chiricos, T. & Waldo, G. (1982). Perceived risk and deterrence: Methodological artifacts in

perceptual deterrence research. Journal of Criminal Law and

Criminology. 73 (3): 1238-1258.

Paternoster, R., Saltzman, L., Waldo, G. & Chiricos, T. (1983)

Estimating perceptual stability and deterrent effects: The role of perceived legal punishment in the inhibition of criminal involvement. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminolog?. 74 (i).

138

Tuchfarber, A. & Klecka K. (1976). Random Digit Dialing: Lowerin@ the Cost of Victimization Surveys. Washington, D.C.: The Police Foundation.

Waldo, G. & Chiricos, T. (1972) Perceived penal sanctions and

self reported criminality. Social Problems. 19: 522.

139