“I knew if I did that, they'd catch me again”: Changes in deterrability over the criminal career

Through the lens of deterrence, we use data from in-depth interviews with formerly incarcerated men to explore how their experiences with formal sanctions influenced their assessments of the risks of further offending over the course of their criminal careers. Specifically, we look at how deterrability changed during their lifetimes and influenced the intermittent patterns of offending. We found that they discussed moving among the three phases of deterrability: (1) deterrable but not deterred, (2) not deterrable and not deterred, and (3) deterrable and deterred. For most of the participants, these phases were fluid throughout their criminal careers. We argue that understanding the situational and contextual factors associated with deterrability informs our understanding of intermittency in offending.