Does Police Strength and Conviction Help to Deter Violent Behavior?[An Empirical Investigation in Punjab]

Current study intends to seek the role of deterrent variables in minimizing the violence behavior of the natives of a society, as literature of crime and economics discipline at country level is unable to explain it. We have concentrated on deterrent variables defined as conviction rate to empirically test the deterrent hypothesis of Baccaria (1789) and Beacker (1968) and on ‘per capita police employees available to society’ to check the crime detection and prevention ability of the responsible authorities to maintain the law and order situation. We have applied the Johansen cointegration approach for long run relationship between the variables. Empirical findings of current study prove that a high rate of conviction and police strength has a significant deterrence effect on criminal behavior. A debate on a seemingly unrelated result regarding to unemployment proves that a general belief about a positive relationship between unemployment and crime is not necessarily prove true regarding different types and categories of crime. Finally an increase in population density and literacy rate depicts simultaneously a significantly positive and negative relationship on criminal behavior of a society.This study opens up new directions for policy makers to control crimes in Punjab.