Modelling crime and punishment

This paper provides an extended supply of labour model which allows for different intensities of legal and illegal (criminal) activities and in which criminal activities may be considered both as work and leisure. Heterogeneity of individuals is also taken into account. The model is estimated from Finnish aggregate time-series data, pooled Finnish municipalities data and pooled international cross-country data. With the Finnish aggregate data, a volume index of crime is constructed and then used in testing the model. All empirical results give strong support to the hypothesis that apprehension and punishment are important deterrents of crime. By contrast, the role of sosioeconomic and demographic variables turns out to be of little importance.     

Guns and crime revisited

I focus on the effect of changes in public security (policing) on private security measures that potential victims can take. In particular, I look at the tradeoff between different types of private security measures – such as using or carrying guns, carrying less cash or keeping less valuables at home, and using burglar alarms or Lojack – and study how this tradeoff is affected by changes in public security. If private householders’ direct security expenses are strongly substitutable with public policing (e.g., for guns which may be more useful in badly policed areas), an increase in policing results in a drop in these expenses; it also results in carrying or keeping less cash (an indirect security measure which reduces the prize a criminal can seize). If, however, householders’ direct security expenses are “complementary” to policing in the sense that they are more effective when police response is rapid (e.g., for burglar alarms), more policing increases these expenses unless the efficacy of joint (public and private) security expenses on combating crime encounters very sharply diminishing returns; moreover, a rise in policing also induces carrying or keeping more cash. An increase in penalties increases the tendency to keep cash on hand, and also reduces crime, provided that as private precautions increase, with policing constant, it takes a larger increment in security spending to compensate for a specific drop in penalties. The results are consistent with some empirical trends in crime rates, policing, penalties and private precautions.     

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.     

Housing prices and crime perception

In this article, we combine data from the housing market with data from a victimization survey to estimate the effect of crime perception on housing prices in the City of Barcelona from 2004 to 2006. Using dwelling data and a hedonic price model (using both OLS and quantile regressions), in the first stage, we estimate the shadow price of the location of dwellings. In the second stage, we analyse the impact of crime perception, after controlling for other district characteristics such as local public spending and immigration, on this locational valuation. After accounting for the possible endogeneity of crime and housing prices, our findings suggest that crime exerts relevant costs beyond its direct costs. Indeed, a one standard deviation increase in perceived security is associated with a 0.57 % increase in the valuation of districts. Moreover, in districts perceived as being less safe than the average for the City of Barcelona, houses are highly discounted. Less safe districts have on average a valuation that is 1.27 % lower.     

Terror and the costs of crime

This paper argues that terrorism, beyond its immediate impact on innocent victims, also raises the costs of crime, and therefore, imposes a negative externality on potential criminals. Terrorism raises the costs of crime through two channels: (i) by increasing the presence and activity of the police force, and (ii) causing more people to stay at home rather than going out for leisure activities. Our analysis exploits a panel of 120 fatal terror attacks and all reported crimes for 17 districts throughout Israel between 2000 and 2005. After controlling for the fixed-effect of each district and for district-specific time trends, we show that terror attacks reduce property crimes such as burglary, auto-theft, and thefts-from-cars. Terror also reduces assaults and aggravated assaults which occur in private homes, but increases incidents of trespassing and “disrupting the police.” Taken as a whole, the results are consistent with a stronger deterrence effect produced by an increased police presence after a terror attack. A higher level of policing is likely to catch more people trespassing, and at the same time, reduce the number of property crimes. The decline in crimes committed in private houses is likely an indication that the tendency for individuals to stay home after a terror attack further increases the costs of crime.     

Modeling crime in Japan

This study aims at identifying the factors of aggregate and disaggregate crime categories in Japan over the period 1964–2009. All crime categories are related to police outlays, police numbers, unemployment, divorce and urbanization rates. Bounds testing approach to cointegration is implemented to test the existence of a long-run relationship amongst the variables. Cointegration analysis yields that the main deterrent effect on crime is the police presence and this factor is further confirmed by the real police outlays. As for the essential cause of crime, urbanization stands as the leading factor which is followed by divorce and unemployment rates. Policy implications are discussed.     

Central city crime and suburban economic growth

This paper explores the relationship between inner-city crime patterns and suburban income growth, analysing data on 318 US counties for selected metropolitan statistical areas of 32 states within the United States from 1982 to 1997. The findings suggest that violent crime does seem to have a negative impact on close-in suburbs, with a less negative impact farther away from the central city (becoming positive at some point). While results are not as robust as we had hoped they are consistent with flight to further-out suburbs rather than migration to different metropolitan areas in response to urban crime.     

Income inequality and crime in the United States

This paper investigates the relationship between income inequality and crime. Results show that there is a strong and robust effect of relative income inequality on burglary. Effect on robbery is also strong and robust in most cases.     

Common trends and common cycles in regional crime

This paper uses the Vahid and Engle (Journal of Applied Econometrics, 8, 341-360, 1993) common trend - common cycle approach to model the dynamics of regional crime rates in England over the period 1975–1996. The evidence indicates the existence of common trends and common cycles in regional crime rates. This result is exploited to examine the system-wide effects of shocks emanating in a particular region.     

Corporate crime and the 'Management' of major hazards

This article is concerned with criminal activity in the context of the regulation of occupational safety and health; within this general concern is a more specific focus upon corporate crime, in the context of the management of major hazards. The article begins by, developing the argument that safety violations are indeed crimes, and ought to be treated as such. This leads on to a more general definitional discussion of the nature of corporate crime. The article then addresses the 'production' of

corporate crime in the context of the management of major hazards, This consideration begins by noting the principles of 'effective'—and hy implication lawful—safety management, before going on to discuss briefly the findings of case studies on the management of safety in contexts characterized by the operation of hazardous technologies. It is concluded that the management and organization ofsafep in these contexts might be labelled 'criminogenic'; a conclusion challenging arguments for increased self-regulation in the organization of safety in such contexts. More generally, it reinforces the claim that we need to consider hazardous technologies and their organizational and managerial contexts in terns of the possible production of safety crimes.     

Juvenile crime and punishment: evidence from Japan

Over the last decade, juvenile crime has become a serious social problem in Japan. The Juvenile Law was revised in 2001 to impose harsher punishment on juvenile offenders. This revision makes it possible to impose criminal punishment on 14- and 15-year-old criminal offenders, while those offenders aged 16–19 have always faced criminal punishment, both before and after the revision. Using this revision as a natural experiment, this study conducts a difference-in-differences estimation to examine the effect of punishment on juvenile crime. The analysis provides evidence that punishment can deter juvenile crime. In addition, this research examines the criminal behaviour of 13-year-olds, who face no change in punishment, but who soon will in the near future. The results suggest that the revision also had a negative impact on the criminal behaviour of these younger offenders.     

Regulating harmless activity to fight crime

This paper establishes that regulating harmless activity can be an effective instrument of law enforcement when the harmless activity and the harmful activity are interdependent. This type of regulation is not without cost, as it distorts the individual choices made by both law-abiding and non-law-abiding individuals. However, it can be socially advantageous when the impact on welfare resulting from changes in the choices of offenders dominates the impact of changes in non-offenders’ decisions; in addition, increasing deterrence by other means (such as raising the probability of detection or the magnitude of sanctions) can incur much higher costs.     

罪刑相适应原则的价值取向

罪刑相适应原则是当代各国刑法的一项基本原则，但并非当代刑法首创，它具有悠远的历史传统和深刻的理论基础。罪刑相适应的思想古已有之，当代社会罪刑相适应的价值主要定位于报应主义和功利主义的融合，从而实现公正和功利的有机统一。     

罪刑相适应原则的价值取向

罪刑相适应原则是当代各国刑法的一项基本原则,但并非当代刑法首创,它具有悠远的历史传统和深刻的理论基础.罪刑相适应的思想古已有之,当代社会罪刑相适应的价值主要定位于报应主义和功利主义的融合,从而实现公正和功利的有机统一.     

Price-raising drug enforcement and property crime: a dynamic model

Price-raising drug enforcement suppresses drug use, but it is expensive and may increase property crime. This has led to contradictory recommendations concerning how drug enforcement should or should not be used. We reconcile these recommendations by incorporating the enforcement's effects on both drug use and on property crime within an optimal-control model that recognizes whether convicted drug-involved property offenders are merely incarcerated or whether they receive some form of drug treatment.     

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.     

Measuring the impact of crime on house prices

This paper uses data on over 2800 house sales in Jacksonville, FL to estimate the impact of crime on house prices. A GIS programme is used to develop neighbourhood characteristics that are unique to each observation. Crime data, available for 89 police beats are assigned to each observation. Weighting the seriousness of offences by the cost of crime to victims is used as an alternative to the customary measures of the number of index crimes. The cost of crime has virtually no impact on house prices overall, but homes are highly discounted in high crime areas.     

跨国合同诈骗犯罪的发展趋势与原因分析

跨国合同诈骗是当前各类跨国经济犯罪活动中比重最大,危害最为严重的犯罪类型之一,并随着世界经济一体化进程的深化呈现出了新的发展趋势.针对当前跨国合同诈骗犯罪的现状,研究分析其发展趋势和形成原因对跨国合同诈骗犯罪的法律规制和防控有重要意义.