Deterrence or Normalization: The Relationship Between Murder Rates and Sentencing Severity in Russia’s Regions

Abstract

   This article examines the relationship between homicide rates and the severity of judicial sentences across Russian regions. Deterrence theory posits that in areas with high crime rates, judges are likely to impose harsher punishments to increase the expected costs of criminal activity and thereby reduce its prevalence. However, social and psychological factors may induce a normalization effect, resulting in no significant change in average sentencing lengths. To ascertain which mechanism predominates in the Russian context, a two-stage regression analysis was employed. The first stage involved a multilevel regression analysis of sentencing data under Part 1 of Article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code (homicide) for the period from 2013 to 2019 (N = 20,265). The findings indicate that judges tend to assign stricter penalties in regions with higher homicide rates, consistent with the deterrence hypothesis. However, intraregional comparisons revealed that within a given region, increases in homicide rates were associated with harsher sentences only for repeat offenders. The second stage aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of this sentencing strategy through a regression analysis aggregated at the regional level (N = 448). The results demonstrated that neither the severity of punishment nor the crime clearance rate had a statistically significant impact on subsequent homicide levels in the regions. These findings call into question the efficacy of using sentence severity as a tool to reduce violent crime.