Deterrence, Defiance and Deviance: An Investigation Into a Group of Recidivist Drink Drivers' Self-Reported Offending Behaviours
| Author | Poppy Liossis,James Freeman,Nikki David |
| DOI | 10.1375/acri.39.1.1 |
| Published date | 01 April 2006 |
| Date | 01 April 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
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THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1 2006 PP.1–19
Address for correspondence: James Freeman, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Accident
Research and Road Safety — Queensland (CARRS-Q), School of Psychology and
Counselling, Faculty of Health, Beams Road, Carseldine QLD 4503, Australia. E-mail:
je.freeman@qut.edu.au
Deterrence, Defiance and Deviance:
An Investigation Into a Group of Recidivist
Drink Drivers’ Self-Reported Offending
Behaviours
James Freeman
Queensland University of Technology,Australia
Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety — Queensland (CARRS-Q),Australia
Poppy Liossis
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Nikki David
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
This article reports on the utilisation of aspects of defiance, deviance
and deterrence theories to examine the self-reported offending
behaviours and punishment experiences for a group of recidivist drink
drivers (N = 166). The analysis indicated that the sample perceived their
penalties as severe yet fair, but not entirely certain nor swift.Par ticipants
also reported they were treated fairly in court and received reasonable
punishments compared to others, but a considerable proportion
reported low levels of respect for the law and questioned the govern-
ment’s legitimacy to control drink driving. Multivariate analysis revealed
that factors from all three models were identified as predictors of
reoffending (e.g., severity, government legitimacy and respect for the law),
as well as for the frequency of drink driving in the past (e.g., certainty and
severity of punishment, personal shame and respect for the law). The
findings indicate that aspects of all three models are applicable to the
examination of habitual reoffending, but a number of factors appear
associated with a drink driving offence.
DETERRENCE THEORY AND DRINK DRIVING
Sustained policing efforts in combination with the development and implementation
of various countermeasures have resulted in significant reductions in the prevalence
of drink driving in the past 15 years (Voas & Tippetts, 2002). More specifically,
deterrence-based practice such as the application of legal sanctions (i.e., fines and
licence loss), random breath testing and well-publicised media campaigns have
contributed to this reduction in drink driving occurrences. Deterrence theory
proposes that individuals will avoid offending behaviour(s) if they fear the
perceived consequences of being apprehended for the act (Homel, 1988; Von
Hirsch, Bottoms, Burney, & Wikstrom, 1999). More specifically, the Classic
Deterrence Doctrine, which is credited to Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria in
the 18th century, proposes that law breaking is inversely related to the certainty,
severity and swiftness of punishment (Taxman & Piquero, 1998).
However, the application of such deterrence practices in isolation has proven to
be less effective for habitual repeat offenders, as research consistently demonstrates
that between 20% to 30% of convicted drink drivers have a prior drink driving
offence (Brewer et al., 1994; Hedlund & McCartt, 2002; Wiliszowski, Murphy,
Jones, & Lacey, 1996). Given the high level of repeat offending in a number of
countries (Brewer et al., 1994; Hedlund & McCartt, 2002; Wiliszowski et al., 1996),
researchers have proposed that this population is immune to the threat of legal
sanctions (Beirness et al., 1997; Hedlund & McCartt, 2002; Taxman & Piquero,
1998; Yu, 2000) or are not easily influenced by deterrence-based countermeasures.
Furthermore, of particular concern for deterrence theory is the growing body of
research that has reported a counterintuitive effect for legal penalties, as punish-
ment for criminal activity appears to be positively associated with some offending
behaviours (Homel, 1988; Paternoster & Piquero, 1995; Piquero & Paternoster,
1998; Piquero & Pogarsky, 2002). In the case of recidivist drink drivers, a number of
questions remain regarding how this group perceive legal sanctions and why they
continue to drink and drive despite incurring increasingly severe penalties. It has
been suggested that deterrence theory cannot adequately explain why sanctions
appear to promote further offences in some contexts (Sherman, 1993), and thus
there appears to be a need to look beyond punishment theories if a greater under-
standing of the link between sanctions and criminal activity is to be achieved.
Despite the prominence of the deterrence doctrine within criminological
research, a number of additional theories that focus on social, developmental,
environmental and biological factors have been developed in an attempt to under-
stand a range of criminal activities. However, in the current context of recidivist
drink drivers, few attempts have been made to apply theoretical paradigms to the
investigation of self-reported offending behaviours (Smith, 2003). Given the
phenomenon of recidivist offenders continuing to drink and drive despite incurring
increasingly severe sanctions, there appears to be a need to look beyond deterrence-
based theories to investigate the process of habitual reoffending. As a result, the
present study aims to utilise aspects of two additional models in combination with
the Classic Deterrence Doctrine, in an attempt to achieve a better understanding of
the factors influencing a group of recidivist drink drivers’ offending behaviours.
DEFIANCE THEORY AND DRINK DRIVING
One promising direction of theoretical change has been to consider the process of
defiance, whereby feelings of unjustness arise from the application of penalties that
are perceived as unfair, which have been proposed to promote further offending
behaviours (Sherman, 1993). Defiance may be defined as ‘the net increase in the
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JAMES FREEMAN, POPPY LIOSSIS AND NIKKI DAVID
THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
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