Modelling and predicting recorded property crime trends in England and Wales—a retrospective

In 1999 the Home Office published, for the first time ever, 3-year ahead projections of property crime in England and Wales. The projections covered the period 1999–2001 and indicated strong upward pressure after five full years of falling crime. This pressure was generated by three factors: the number of young men in the general population, the state of the economy and the fact that property crime appeared to be well below its underlying trend level. The projections received a mixed response, with some agreeing that crime was set to rise while questioning the scale of any increase, to others who doubted the value of this type of econometric modelling. In fact, property crime did increase in 1999, although not at the rate suggested by the models—and indeed levels of burglary continued to fall. This paper addresses some of the reasons for this disparity as well as considering various criticisms of the Home Office approach.     

Criminal incident prediction using a point-pattern-based density model

Law enforcement agencies need crime forecasts to support their tactical operations; namely, predicted crime locations for next week based on data from the previous week. Current practice simply assumes that spatial clusters of crimes or “hot spots” observed in the previous week will persist to the next week. This paper introduces a multivariate prediction model for hot spots that relates the features in an area to the predicted occurrence of crimes through the preference structure of criminals. We use a point-pattern-based transition density model for space–time event prediction that relies on criminal preference discovery as observed in the features chosen for past crimes. The resultant model outperforms the current practices, as demonstrated statistically by an application to breaking and entering incidents in Richmond, VA.     

Edge versus center: finding common ground in the capitalization debate

A continuing debate questions whether capitalization of taxes and public services into house price occurs. The current study argues for an inverse relationship between housing supply elasticity and capitalization rates. A sample is split into houses on the interior and edge of the urban area. Capitalization of schooling and crime occurs everywhere, but it is weaker toward the edge of an urban area where housing supply elasticities and developer activity are greater. Tax results are less robust, but the capitalization rates of crime and school quality are roughly twice as strong on the interior than on the urban fringe.     

Wherein Lies the Benefit of the Second Referee in the NHL?

This paper investigates the impact of the second referee in the National Hockey League, including the indirect impact of the second referee on in-arena attendance and national television audiences. During the 1998–1999 and 1999–2000 seasons, the second referee improved scoring, reduced fighting and penalty minutes but had no measurable impact on closeness of competition. In-arena attendance, a source of non-shared revenue for team owners, was not influenced by improved scoring or reduced fighting. On the other hand, national television viewership increased with expected scoring. The empirical results allow for an initial comparison of the benefits and costs of the second referees to the league. While it seems unlikely that any team would have unilaterally paid for all of the second referees, the benefits of the second referee seemed to have outweighed the costs. Therefore, the NHL's decision to introduce a second referee may have solved a free-rider problem while providing profit potential for NHL franchises.     

Crime and benefit sanctions

In this paper we look at the relationship between crime and economic incentives in a different way to other work in the economics of crime field. We look at empirical models where a toughening of the unemployment benefit regime can be used to study how people on the margins of crime may react to changes in economic incentives. We present three sets of complementary evidence, all of which show that toughening the benefit regime can have an unintended consequence, namely increases in crime. The first approach presents quasi-experimental evidence, looking at crime rates in areas of England and Wales before and after the introduction of a new, tougher unemployment benefit programme—the Jobseekers Allowance (JSA)—in October 1996. The second approach considers qualitative evidence on individuals affected by the change in the benefit regime. The third relates changes in area crime rates to post-JSA sanctions. Each of these approaches uncovers evidence of higher crime occurring as a consequence of the benefit reform.

抢劫虚拟财产行为之定性探讨

对抢劫虚拟财产的行为不以犯罪论处,势必放纵这种极具社会危害性的不法行为,使人们的合法权益得不到最具制裁力的刑法保护,这其实背离了刑法罪责刑相适应的原则和主客观相一致的原则,从而最终有违刑法“惩罚犯罪、保护人民”精神实质。     

A general equilibrium investigation of handguns,cops and robbers

We study a general equilibrium environment in which the only activity of interest is armed robbery. Agents choose to be citizens or robbers, and to purchase handguns or not. By arming, citizens can protect themselves from robbery. The government chooses the intensity of police efforts to arrest would-be robbers and to arrest citizens who arm for self-defense. Properties of an equilibrium are characterized and comparative statics results are obtained. We then show why empirical work that examines variations in “shall issue” laws could lead to wrong conclusions. Our analysis produces counterexamples to the following propositions: raising the arrest rate of robbers reduces crime; increasing the arrest rate of armed citizens reduces the number of armed citizens (crime rate, gun death rate). We thank V. V. Chari, John Kareken, Ross Levine, Andy McLennan, Raj Singh, David Smith, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments.     

保险诈骗罪疑难问题探析

在保险诈骗罪频发的犯罪态势下,司法实践中相关疑难问题的解决对遏制犯罪具有现实意义。鉴于法制完善是遏制保险诈骗犯罪的关键性和基础性因素,应从体制上解决保险诈骗罪的主体、罪数以及相关共同犯罪认定等方面的问题。     

Crime,punishment, and consumer protection

Criminal law is perhaps society’s strongest technique of formal censure. By labelling an activity as “criminal” we attach to it a special stigma. Despite this, the United Kingdom (UK) has a long history of criminalising conduct that lacks the seriousness we might expect that label to involve. One area where criminal sanctions have been commonly used in the UK is consumer protection. This article argues that it is time to reconsider the role of criminal law in consumer protection and considers how alternative regimes may better-protect the consumer from business wrongdoing.

CRIME PREVENTION PROGRAMS: EVIDENCE FROM CHILE

This paper analyzes the impact of two anti‐crime programs adopted in Chile in the late 1990s. The first (the so‐called Quadrant Plan) is aimed at enhancing the quality of police work and the second (the Secure County Plan), at encouraging the involvement of the community in designing specific projects aimed at reducing the crime rate. It is found that only the Quadrant Plan has been successful in terms of reducing crime rates and has caused an impact through the effect of arrests in deterring crime. The Secure County program does not appear to have had any incidence on crime rates. It is also found that crime is associated with unemployment and that there is persistence in crime rates.