We provide new evidence on the effect of deterrence on crime using the experience of a transition country (the Czech Republic) as a quasi-natural experiment. The arrival of democracy in 1989 was accompanied by sharp reductions in all measures of deterrence and sharp increases in crime rates. We test whether deterrence, rather than other factors, was responsible for the post-1989 growth in crime...

Successes of law enforcement in apprehending offenders are often publicized events. Such events have been found to result in temporary reductions in offending, or “residual deterrence”. We provide a theory of residual deterrence which accounts for the incentives of both enforcement officials and potential offenders. Our theory rests on the costs of reallocating enforcement resources. In light o...

The theory of deterrence has been concerned primarily with situations in which individuals consider whether to commit a single harmful act. For instance, a person may be deciding whether to discharge a pollutant into a lake. In some contexts, however, a person may be contemplating which of several harmful acts to commitwhether to discharge a pollutant into a lake or instead to discharge it onto...

Principle of non-refoulement protected by EU law – National practices Deterrence Pushbacks Border police deterrence Reaction institutions Legal uncertainties ‘Safe country origin’ ‘First asylum’ third country’ values New Pact on Migration and Asylum