Using data from a survey of students in six Arizona high schools, this paper examines the relation between perceived risk of punishment and self- reported delinquency. Consistent with the deterrence doctrine, the relation is inverse regardless of the location of the schools (metropolitan or small town), type of delinquency, or the kind of measure of perceived risk. However, measures of perceived personal risk (the individual's perception of his or her own risk) provide more consistent support for the deterrence doctrine than measures of perceived aggregate risk (perception of the risk for all juveniles in the same community). Moreover, personal risk is inversely related to delinquency even when social condemnation of delinquent offenses, attachment to conventional persons, and several status characteristics (e.g., age, sex) of the students are taken into account.