Part I offers easy-to-understand definitions and explanations of concepts. Part II has to do with deterrence as a motive for official action in crime control, and Part III is an examination of the effectiveness of threats toward inducing compliance with the law. Some underlying themes to this analysis are an overwhelming sense of the specificity of findings in deterrence research, and the difference in texture between issues of absolute and marginal deterrence. A significant observation is that increases in knowledge do not automatically result in improvements in official attitudes and policies. Footnotes