RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ILLICIT DRUG ENFORCEMENT POLICY AND PROPERTY CRIMES

Some justify the law enforcement emphasis on controlling illicit drug markets by contending that drug users attempting to finance their habits often are responsible for property crime. Yet, in Florida at least, the increased effort to control drug markets has been accompanied by increasing property crime. The fact is that law enforcement resources are scarce, and many resources now being devoted to enforcing drug laws have been shifted away from enforcing laws pertaining to other crimes. This has reduced deterrence for property crime and, as a result, such crime has increased. Thus, the resource reallocations accompanying strong drug law enforcement lead to more property crime.     

Violent crime and punishment: an application of the LISREL model

Public anxiety over violent crime has forged a broad consensus to purchase more crime control. Recently, the President brought into law a federal anti-crime bill that will put an additional 100 000 police on the nation's streets. This paper presents empirical evidence on the deterrence effect of police presence. The principal finding is that police presence deters commission of violent crimes by increasing the risk of being punished for committing those crimes. This risk is modelled as a latent variable, because the probability and severity of punishment for committing a violent crime are generally communicated in an onconsistant fashion. The violent crime commission rate is also treated as a latent variable, because it is almost certainly afflicted with measurement error.     

Private law enforcement,fine sharing,and tax collection: Theory and historical evidence

This paper contributes to the literature on private law enforcement by proposing a novel solution to the problem of underenforcement by monopolistic enforcers. Monopolistic enforcers underinvest in enforcement because they ignore the social benefits of deterrence. We show that this problem can be partially resolved by combining law enforcement with tax collection because a joint enforcer-collector will have an interest in reducing the crime rate in order to maximize his tax income. In support of the theory, we discuss two historical examples of this practice: decentralized law enforcement under European feudalism, and centralized law enforcement in the Ottoman Empire.     

Law enforcement and transition

We present a simple model to analyze law enforcement problems in transition economies. Law enforcement implies coordination problems and multiplicity of equilibria due to a law abidance and a fiscal externality. We analyze two institutional mechanisms for solving the coordination problem. A first mechanism, which we call “dualism”, follows the scenario of Chinese transition where the government keeps direct control over economic resources and where a liberalized non-state sector follows market rules. The second mechanism we put forward is accession to the European Union. We show that accession to the European Union, even without external borrowing, provides a mechanism to eliminate the “bad” equilibrium, provided the “accessing” country is small enough relative to the European Union. Interestingly, we show that accession without conditionality is better than with conditionality because conditionality creates a coordination problem of its own that partly annihilates the positive effects of expected accession.     

Multiple equilibria in the context of inspection probabilities depending on firms’ relative emissions

This paper presents a model of environmental regulations with firms that are heterogeneous with respect to the cost for reducing emissions to the legally permitted level. Given that the enforcement capacity is limited due to budgetary constraints and that each firm's inspection probability depends on its emissions relative to other firms’ emissions, the likelihood of being punished for violations is endogenously determined and multiple equilibria may therefore arise. Hence, both good outcomes with high compliance rates and bad outcomes with many violations are possible. Multiple equilibria are most likely to emerge at intermediate levels of deterrence and at low permitted emission levels. However, it is generally not straightforward how stricter legislation impacts on equilibrium outcomes, indicating that behavioral expectations among regulated firms are an important factor to consider when adapting enforcement to changes in the law.     

Identifying Efficient Crime-Combating Policies by VAR Models: The Example of Switzerland

Current research suggests that the crime-combating instrument sentence probability is more effective than sentence severity. However, the focus of the simultaneous (or very short-run) impact of the law enforcement policy on crime impedes a comparison of these two instruments with respect to their long-term effectiveness. With Swiss data, this article investigates the dynamic interrelationships between enforcement policy and crime and finds that overall, sentence severity is about the same effective as sentence probability. Furthermore, the authors show how the VAR-modeling technique can be exploited to conveniently distinguish between deterrence and incapacitation effects. More concrete recommendations toward a cost-effective crime-reduction policy can be derived. (JEL C32 , K42 )     

Are property rights enough?Re‐evaluating a big‐bang claim1

We investigate the claim made by proponents of the big‐bang strategy that the establishment of property rights in an economy in transition creates its own demand for the enforcement of laws to protect those rights. Our model contains a government engaging in activities to accomplish objectives that depend on public support for the enforcement of the rule of law and agents who interpret the level of activities of the government as indications of the government's intent to enforce the rule of law. Agents, using the level of government activities as an input to their decisions, choose whether to support the government's objectives. We establish conditions under which the level of activities chosen by the government maximizes its benefits, and simultaneously induces the constituency to support enforcement of the rule of law. These conditions provide a basis for the argument for the implementation of the big‐bang policy. When these conditions do not hold, however, we show that the level of activities that maximizes the government's benefits may have only a minor impact on support for the enforcement of the rule of law. Two characteristics play an important role in these conditions: the initial level of crime and the types of activities the government chooses to undertake. We present examples showing that the initial level of crime has the more dramatic effect on subsequent support for the rule of law.     

Individual protection against property crime: decomposing the effects of protection observability

Abstract.  We re-examine the efficiency of observable and unobservable crime protection decisions with new results and insights. Observable protection is unambiguously associated with a negative externality. At the individual level, it reduces the crime effort, but its unit payoff remains unchanged. Conversely, unobservable protection reduces the unit payoff and has no effect on the crime effort exerted, though it deters crime globally. A decrease in the global crime payoff is detrimental to a victim if protection is observable, while it is beneficial when unobservable. While observable protection has a positive diversion effect, it has the opposite effect when unobservable.     

Dynamic Law Enforcement with Learning

This article modifies a standard model of law enforcement toallow for learning by doing. We incorporate the process of enforcementlearning by assuming that the agency's current marginal costis a decreasing function of its past experience of detectingand convicting. The agency accumulates data and information(on criminals, on opportunities of crime), enhancing the abilityof future apprehension at a lower marginal cost. We focus onthe impact of enforcement learning on optimal compliance rules.In particular, we show that the optimal fine could be less thanmaximal and the optimal probability of detection could be higherthan otherwise. It is also suggested that the optimal imprisonmentsentence could be higher than otherwise.     

Challenging the enforcement of environmental regulation

If a firm can contest the enforcement of an environmental regulation, neither increasing the probability nor severity of the fine will guarantee a reduction in a firm's illegally dumped waste. A policy that can unambiguously decrease illegal dumping is lowering the cost of legal disposal. This result occurs because the use of monitoring and fines to increase the probability or severity of enforcement triggers investment to evade enforcement, while a decrease in the costs of legal disposal does not. Investment in the resources to evade enforcement decreases the attractiveness of monitoring by significantly increasing the costs of environmental audits, administrative hearings, and judicial procedures. This occurs even with a high degree of regulator information about the firm's cost structure and no monitoring errors. In addition, if the regulator can only imperfectly monitor a firm's behavior so the firm can be accused of another firm's behavior, observable commitment to challenge enforcement will lead to overinvestment in resources to evade enforcement, an increased level of illegal dumping, and an overall increase in total costs relative to the unobservable case.     

Is property crime caused by drug use or by drug enforcement policy?

The relationships among drug offenses, prorperty crime, and the allocation of police resources are investigated in a structural model using data from Florida countries. Law enforcement resources are scarce, and as efforts to combat drug crime increase the amount of these resources allocated to property crime is reduced. This reallocation of police resources results in reduced deterrence for property crime and, as a result, an increase in these crimes. The evidence presented suggests that rising property crimes in Florida are at least partially the result of drug enforcement policy.     

Profiling,Screening, and Criminal Recruitment

We model major criminal activity as a game in which a law enforcement officer chooses the rate at which to screen different population groups, and a criminal organization (e.g., drug cartel, terrorist cell) chooses the observable characteristics of its recruits. Our model best describes smuggling or terrorism activities at borders, airports, and other security checkpoints. The most effective law enforcement policy imposes only moderate restrictions on the officer's ability to profile. In contrast to models of decentralized crime, requiring equal treatment never improves the effectiveness of law enforcement.     

The Importance of Being Honest*

Given individual propensities to cheat (stealing, overcharging, etc.), the optimality conditions for the amount of resources devoted to law enforcement and for the severity of penalties on convicted cheats are derived. In some interesting cases, the optimal penalty equals the market price divided by the probability of conviction and it is optimal to spend very little on enforcement and impose a severe penalty. These conclusions seem to apply to the practical case of metered parking violation.     

Constitutional craftsmanship and the rule of law

Is “rule of law” anything more than a fictional allusion? After all, “law” is an abstract noun, and abstract nouns can’t rule. Only people can rule. The conceptual framework of constitutional political economy invokes a central distinction between choosing rules and playing within those rules. Claims on behalf of a rule of law require a sharp distinction between the enforcement of agreed-upon rules and arbitrary changes in those rules. This paper explores whether there are constitutional arrangements under which it could reasonably be claimed that governance reflects a deep level operation of a rule of law despite the surface level recognition that it is men who rule. With the exercise of rulership being a social process and not a matter of individual action, the network pattern through which rules are enforced takes on particular significance. In particular, polycentric architectures are generally more consistent with rule of law than monocentric architectures.     

Mixed markets and crime

This paper specifies and solves a two-stage, game theoretic model of a mixed market for crime control. In the first stage of the model, private targets and the government choose levels of policing. In the second stage, criminals choose targets and the severity of the crimes that they commit.The paper's key results are as follows. First, private policing can both divert crime to targets that lack private protection and also increase the severity of the crime that these less-protected targets suffer. Second, an increase in private policing reduces the aggregate expenditure on traditional policing. This is an instance of a political incentive externality, where private policing affects the objective function of the government. Specifically, it reduces the level of traditional policing that is consistent with the Samuelson condition for efficient provision of a public good. Third, the substitution of private for public policing carries with it a change in the technology of policing. In effect, private policing leads to a shift from enforcement and punishment towards monitoring and target hardening. This, in turn, may lead to an increase in the severity of crime. Fourth, the mixed policing equilibrium is inefficient, and, in some situations, mixing may reduce the utility of all targets.     

行政法规适用之商榷——以一起娱乐场所无照经营案为例

对娱乐场所无照经营行为有关执法部门应当依法进行处罚,但国务院分别制定了《娱乐场所管理条例》与《无照经营查处取缔办法》两个行政法规,两者处罚规定似有冲突。综合法理,可以适用《办法》依法进行处罚。为适用法律准确明晰,建议修改《娱乐场所管理条例》。     

Criminal mobility,fugitives, and extradition rules

Two countries set their enforcement noncooperatively to deter native and foreign individuals from committing a crime in their territory. Crime is mobile, ex ante (migration) and ex post (fleeing), and criminals hiding abroad after committing a crime in a country must be extradited. When extradition is not too costly, countries overinvest in enforcement: insourcing foreign criminals is more costly than paying the extradition cost. When extradition is sufficiently costly, instead, significant enforcement may induce criminals to flee the country whose law they infringed on. The fear of paying the extradition cost enables the countries to coordinate on the efficient outcome.     

A probabilistic model of location choice with neighborhood effects

This paper tries to develop a probabilistic model of location choice by many types of individuals who interact among themselves in the presence of neighborhood effects. Equilibrium is defined as an allocation of individuals among locations such that for every type of individuals the selection probability for each location is equal to the proportion of individuals actually choosing the location in question. The existence of equilibrium is proved under usual continuity assumptions. The equilibrium is shown to be unique and stable in the presence of neighborhood effects, if the degree of externality is sufficiently small.     

Preemptive collusion among corruptible law enforcers

This paper considers collusion between a supervisor and an agent within a Principal–Supervisor–Agent model. Other papers consider the possibility of collusion after the supervisor has exerted costly effort to obtain hard (“verifiable”) evidence regarding the agent’s actions, information which, if reported would result in the agent being fined with a certain probability. That is, collusion occurs because the supervisor may accept a bribe in exchange for hiding the information he has obtained. This paper allows the supervisor and the agent to enter into a collusive contract either before or after the supervisor has exerted effort to find verifiable information regarding the agent’s actions. The former type of collusion, which occurs after the supervisor has exerted effort, entails ex-post corruption, while the latter, which occurs before the supervisor has exerted effort, entails preemptive corruption. This paper shows that although raising the supervisor’s reward discourages ex-post corruption, it can simultaneously encourage preemptive corruption. Hence, raising the supervisor’s reward will not always discourage collusion. This result further implies that though privatizing law enforcement can always be used to eliminate ex-post corruption, it cannot be used to eliminate preemptive corruption. Furthermore, when compared to ex-post collusion, an equilibrium without corruption is always socially preferred. However, when compared to preemptive collusion, an equilibrium without corruption may not always be socially preferred.     

Lie aversion and self-reporting in optimal law enforcement

Requirements that individuals or companies self-report violations are common in regulation and law enforcement. This paper studies how violators’ aversion to lying affects the design and merit of enforcement regimes that require self-reporting. Even when a self-reporting requirement produces costs of lies and enjoys no economic advantage in the absence of lie aversion, I find that self-reporting improves enforcement efficiency. With lie aversion, self-reporting enables greater deterrence of violations at a lower cost of monitoring. Corollaries to this result are that (1) the presence of lie aversion enhances social welfare; (2) enforcement regimes that elicit more noxious lies when false reports are made—for example, a compulsory versus voluntary self-reporting feature—are advantageous; and (3) under an optimal enforcement regime, lying generally occurs and the self-reporting sanction is higher than the average sanction for a false report.