Crime, deterrence and punishment revisited

Abstract

Despite an abundance of empirical evidence on crime spanning over 40 years, there exists no consensus on the impact of the criminal justice system on crime activity. We construct a new panel data set that contains all relevant variables prescribed by economic theory. Our identification strategy allows for a feedback relationship between crime and deterrence variables, and it controls for omitted variables and measurement error. We deviate from the majority of the literature in that we specify a dynamic model, which captures the essential feature of habit formation and persistence in aggregate behaviour. Our results show that the criminal justice system exerts a large influence on crime activity. Increasing the risk of apprehension and conviction is more influential in reducing crime than raising the expected severity of punishment.

Black Lives Matter Protests, Fatal Police Interactions, and Crime

“…The effect that Comey was referring to was de‐policing or the “Ferguson Effect.” The Ferguson Effect theorizes that increased scrutiny on law enforcement officer behavior has led to a decrease in proactive policing. As it has been fairly well documented in previous research that deterrence measures are correlated with crime rates (Bun et al 2019; Corman and Mocan 2002; Levitt 2002), de‐policing could increase crime.…”

Deterrence of Punitive Measures on Collusive Bidding in the Construction Sector

“…e research findings outline the threshold value of punitive measures, a reference to promote collusion regulations. e results show that the comprehensive punishment coefficient f � 0.5380% is smaller than the threshold f � 5.423%, signifying that the SoP deserves wider applications in the Chinese construction market [44], echoing Connor and Lande's views [69]. As indicated by equation ( 1), an increase in the SoP for participants has better deterrence effects than that for the convenor.…”

“…While both play a due role in crime deterrence, many countries prefer to use the SoP to deter regular bidders from initiating collusion [41,42]. Meanwhile, excessive punishment turns out to be a diminished deterrent effect, namely overdeterrence [43], and the CoP owns more complicated deterrence effects than the SoP [44][45][46][47]. Although previous studies have confirmed the values of punitive approaches to deter collusive bidding, little consensus has been reached hitherto.…”

Deterrence Through Criminal Confiscation? Some Exploratory Findings From Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

“…Even after, there was no designated module for data entry on confiscation, which was put into function just in January 2020. 12 First the population of cases needed to be established, and then the information for the Confiscation of Proceeds of Crime in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazzette of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina No. 71/14).…”

“…Municipal court in Čitluk officially began with work later in 2017, and municipal court in Srebrenik in January 2019, respectively, so the data from these particular courts could not be requested. 12 Data on functionality of special electronic module on confiscation available at https://www.pravosudje.ba/vstv/faces/vijesti.jsp?id=89716. individual court on variables briefly described above needed to be compiled.…”