Deterrence and Incapacitation Effects in a Closed Area: A Case Study of Auto Theft in Taiwan

Deterrence and incapacitation effects of auto theft are estimated with a full consideration of substitution effects across crime types and across districts in a closed area in which none of the effects will leak out. It is found that the increase in the cleared rate of auto theft crime in a certain district and in other districts strongly deters the auto theft in that district, indicating that the across‐district deterrence effect dominates the across‐district substitution effect. The across‐crime deterrence effect significantly exceeds the across‐crime substitution effect for close crime (general theft), but is insignificant for distant crime (violence).