A smarter (and cost-efficient) way to fight crime:Most crimes in the United States are committed by long-term repeat offenders, a majority of whom are eventually caught. One of every 100 adults in the United States is now behind bars; many are serving lengthy sentences. The crimes they committed clearly did not “pay” in any objective sense of the term.
Why, then, did they commit them? The short answer is that most criminals are not the dispassionate rational actors who populate standard economic models. They are more like impulsive children, blinded by the temptation of immediate reward and largely untroubled by the possibility of delayed or uncertain punishment.
The evidence suggests that when hardened criminals are reasonably sure that they will be caught and punished swiftly, even mild sanctions deter them. But not even the prospect of severe punishment is effective if offenders think they can get away with their crimes.
One way to make apprehension and punishment more likely is to spend substantially more money on law enforcement. In a time of chronic budget shortfalls, however, that won’t happen.
But Mr. Kleiman suggests that smarter enforcement strategies can make existing budgets go further. The important step, he says, is to view enforcement as a dynamic game in which strategically chosen deterrence policies become self-reinforcing. If offense rates fall enough, a tipping point is reached. And once that happens, even modest enforcement resources can hold offenders in check...
It is an ingenious idea that borrows from game theory and the economics of signaling behavior..
Read the whole thing.
(HT Tyler Cowen)
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