Theft and Deterrence

Abstract

We report results from economic experiments of decisions that are best described as petty larceny, with high school and college students who can anonymously steal real money from each other. Our design allows exogenous variation in the rewards of crime, and the penalty and probability of detection. We find that the probability of stealing is increasing in the amount of money that can be stolen, and that it is decreasing in the probability of getting caught and in the penalty for getting caught. Furthermore, the impact of the certainty of getting caught is larger when the penalty is bigger, and the impact of the penalty is bigger when the probability of getting caught is larger.

Experimental Criminal Law. A Survey of Contributions from Law, Economics and Criminology

“…Nagin and Pogarsky (2003) find a certainty effect, but no severity effect. Harbaugh, Mocan et al (2013) find certainty and severity effects of about the same magnitude.…”

“…Participants even do so if stealing reduces expected profit (Schildberg-Hörisch andStrassmair 2012, Engel andNagin 2015). If there is more to steal, theft becomes more frequent (Harbaugh, Mocan et al 2013). In South Africa, black participants steal more from other black participants than from white participants (Pecenka and Kundhlande 2013).…”

“…The experimenter endows one participant with an electronic entitlement that is exchanged against real money at the end of the experiment (skirting the doctrinal question whether this constitutes theft or computer fraud). Another participant has the possibility to take some or all of this endowment (Falk and Fischbacher 2002, Gravert 2013, Harbaugh, Mocan et al 2013, Pecenka and Kundhlande 2013, Feess, Schramm et al 2014, Engel and Nagin 2015, Khadjavi 2015, Fleming, Parravano et al 2016. Participants even do so if stealing reduces expected profit (Schildberg-Hörisch andStrassmair 2012, Engel andNagin 2015).…”

The impact of fine size and uncertainty on punishment and deterrence: Theory and evidence from the laboratory

“…Since they do not use a strategy-method approach, they cannot compare equilibrium effects with partial effects. In order to test Becker's (1968) deterrence hypothesis in the laboratory, Harbaugh, Mocan, and Visser (2013), Khadjavi (2015), Rizzolli and Stanca (2012), and Schildberg-Hörisch and Strassmair (2012) use take game designs in which participants can "steal" from their counterparts' endowments with exogenous punishment schemes (fine sizes and probabilities of punishment). Overall, these papers confirm that the violation frequency is decreasing in fines and probability of punishment.…”

Are youth offenders responsive to changing sanctions? Evidence from the Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2003

“…The response of youth crime to sanctions has been under‐investigated relative to that of adult crime (Levitt and Lochner ) and remains an active research area in crime economics (Harbaugh et al. , Hjalmarsson ). The notion that youth react to crime incentives has been particularly subjected to contention from researchers in other social disciplines, often citing “scientific evidence on juvenile brain development” (Zimring and Rushin , p. 62).…”