The self-reinforcing nature of crime

Schrag, Joel L.; Scotchmer, Suzanne

doi:10.1016/s0144-8188(97)00025-2

Cited by 56 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…When several persons are subject to some rule and sanctions capacity is constrained, the subjects face interdependent choices: The higher the prevalence of violation, the less the risk of sanction for any given violator. This idea is referred to as ''enforcement swamping'' (11) or the ''overload theory'' (12) and is well known in the deterrence (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17) and urban riot (18) literatures. The result can be a 2-equilibrium ''tipping'' situation, in which both high and low violation rates are self-sustaining, and temporary interventions can therefore have lasting consequences if they push the system across the tipping point (19,20).…”

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confidence: 99%

The dynamics of deterrence

Kleiman¹,

Kilmer

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Because punishment is scarce, costly, and painful, optimal enforcement strategies will minimize the amount of actual punishment required to effectuate deterrence. If potential offenders are sufficiently deterrable, increasing the conditional probability of punishment (given violation) can reduce the amount of punishment actually inflicted, by ''tipping'' a situation from its high-violation equilibrium to its low-violation equilibrium. Compared to random or ''equal opportunity'' enforcement, dynamically concentrated sanctions can reduce the punishment level necessary to tip the system, especially if preceded by warnings. Game theory and some simple and robust Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate these results, which, in addition to their potential for reducing crime and incarceration, may have implications for both management and regulation.crime ͉ enforcement ͉ game theory ͉ positive feedback ͉ tipping H umans cooperate; the extent of cooperation among humans marks them out from all other species (1, 2). But cooperation is vulnerable to exploitation through aggression, deception, opportunistic defection from agreements, and free-riding. Where cooperative strategies are suboptimal for individuals, mutually beneficial arrangements will fail to arise, or will degenerate (3-5).Under experimental conditions, some individuals will voluntarily incur costs to themselves to punish noncooperative behavior; doing so can facilitate cooperation by reducing the potential gains from exploitation (1, 4, 6). Thus punishment is a basic element of human social interaction.As punishment is always costly, both to the punisher and (obviously) to those punished, a well-designed enforcement system should combine high efficacy in discouraging exploitative behavior with low actual infliction of sanctions. At first blush, it might seem that these 2 objectives are in fundamental tension; that more compliance requires more punishment. But 3 law-enforcement examples seem to support the contrary proposition.First, when the New York City Police Department implemented a ''zero tolerance'' policy toward ''squeegeeing''-penny-ante extortion involving wiping the windshields of cars stuck in traffic and then ''requesting'' payment from the drivers-by arresting every squeegee-man observed plying his trade, the number of actual arrests for squeegeeing went down, not up (7). The same happened when the New York City Transit Police cracked down on ''turnstile-jumping.'' Second, police in High Point, NC, who had been sporadically arresting drug dealers in a long-established crack market for 2 decades and finding that every arrestee was quickly replaced, changed strategies. They identified all of the currently active dealers in that market and developed felony cases against them, but arrested and prosecuted only 3 dealers who had been involved in violence. They then held a meeting with the remaining dealers and announced that anyone who continued to sell drugs would face certain prison time. Soon after, the market disappeared, and the number of crack-deali...

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confidence: 99%

The dynamics of deterrence

Kleiman¹,

Kilmer

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Given our main 14 Schrag and Scotchmer [11] find that the possibility of an unfair conviction may affect the incentives of a person considering whether or not to commit murder but their analysis rests on the assumption that the murderer will think that if he/she does not kill a given person (in a dark alley) somebody else might kill that same person, and the blame may then still be on him/her. While this situation may occur it seems, as the authors admit in an accompanying paper [12], somewhat contrived. 15 We have implicitly assumed that the sanction is set at some maximal level perhaps determined by the wealth of individuals, and that over-deterrence is not an issue.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…for the law of evidence 12 , consider the following example. Let there be a society in which subcultures A and B differ in their propensity for crime.…”

Section: On the Non-use Of Ex-ante Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

When is the Preponderance of the Evidence Standard Optimal?

Lando

2002

Geneva Pap Risk Insur Issues Pract

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This paper defines the preponderance of the evidence standard and establishes it as a benchmark, optimal under certain idealized conditions. The main conditions are: only efficiency matters (not fairness); people are risk-neutral; sanctions are socially costless; and a suit may be brought even if no violation of the law has occurred.Concerning the definition of preponderance of the evidence, a distinction is made between standards based on probability of guilt and standards based on the evidence. It is stressed that the latter does not include ex-ante information concerning the offender's type, and should hence not be associated with a probability of guilt in a Bayesian sense.1

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“…In contrast, the positive covariance between the individual decisions to commit or refrain from committing crime in our framework is due to the fact that subjective well-being depends in part on the comparison of one's own consumption level to that of others. Other social interaction models (such as Glaeser et al (1996), Sah (1991), Schrag and Scotchmer (1997), Silverman (2004), andTraxler (2010)), rely on different reasons to explain this interdependence. For example, Glaser et al (1996) consider the case in which some individuals imitate their neighbors, while Schrag and Scotchmer (1997) examine the consequences of several potential criminals with access to an opportunity for crime in a setting in which an individual with access may be sanctioned erroneously.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other social interaction models (such as Glaeser et al (1996), Sah (1991), Schrag and Scotchmer (1997), Silverman (2004), andTraxler (2010)), rely on different reasons to explain this interdependence. For example, Glaser et al (1996) consider the case in which some individuals imitate their neighbors, while Schrag and Scotchmer (1997) examine the consequences of several potential criminals with access to an opportunity for crime in a setting in which an individual with access may be sanctioned erroneously. In another line of inquiry, Burdett et al (2003), Huang et al (2004, and Marceau and Mongrain (2011) incorporate potential labor market influences.…”

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confidence: 99%

Status concerns as a motive for crime?

Baumann

Friehe

2015

International Review of Law and Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. We establish that subjects' status concerns can result in multiple-equilibrium crime rates and may modify the standard comparative-statics results regarding how the crime rate changes in response to a higher detection probability and higher sanctions. In addition, we argue that the socially optimal level of the detection probability and the sanction will often be higher when potential offenders care about their relative positions. Our analysis can be linked to one of the most important criminological theories of crime, namely strain theory. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor mayJEL-Code: H230, K420.

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The self-reinforcing nature of crime

Cited by 56 publications

References 5 publications

The dynamics of deterrence

The dynamics of deterrence

When is the Preponderance of the Evidence Standard Optimal?

Status concerns as a motive for crime?

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