Marginal deterrence: The effect of illicit incentive on robbery escalation

The extant literature on marginal deterrence supports the notion that individuals maintain a dynamic decision-making process that yields several ranked outcomes after weighing the risks and rewards. In this article, we conduct a novel large-scale empirical analysis of the marginal deterrence principle to advance theory on the magnitude of potential deterrent effects. We regress a stratified outcome variable representative of six decision outcomes for the crime of robbery on a unique exogenous illicit incentive measure. We employ a multilevel ordinal regression equation that nests 29,297 robbery incidents within 98 cities to test the marginal deterrence thesis. Our analysis yields a statistically significant positive relationship with our criminogenic incentive measure. More specifically, the model provides suggestive evidence that as the illicit incentive increases the odds of violence escalating in a robbery incident also increases. The results from this analysis provides theoretical, methodological, and practical implications for attenuating societal harm. Moreover, we expand on how to measure the scaling severity of harm within the criminal decision-making process. From a policy perspective, we provide support for harm indices and crime prevention.