Crime

Question 1

How is a crime survey carried out?

Answer 1

Select representative sample of addresses and ask people if they’ve experienced crime in past 12months

Question 2

Name another measure of crime?

Answer 2

Police record

Question 3

3 main things crime economists look at?

Answer 3

Incentives behind crime
CBA of different strategies to reduce crime
The way decisions interact

Question 4

3 economic features of criminals?

Answer 4

Low education (2/3 don’t finish high school)
Unemployment
Low average test qualification score

Question 5

3 similarities between criminals and victims?

Answer 5

From low income groups
Blacks more likely than whites
Males primary victims of violent crimes (bar rape)

Question 6

Costs of crime to the criminal? (3)

Answer 6

Prison time, fines, community service, consequences and opportunity cost of doing prison time

Question 7

Costs of crime to society? (4)

Answer 7

Expenditure on: police, judicial system, running prisons, collecting fines etc

Also damage to victims and others

Question 8

2 benefits of crime(one for criminal and one for society)?

Answer 8

Pays better hourly wage

Combination of crime and legal work boosts GDP

Question 9

What is Becker’s model?

Answer 9

An individual commits a crime if:

X - pz > (1-u).w

X = benefit of crime
p = probability of getting caught
z = punishment if caught
u = unemployment rate
w = wage if employed

Question 10

Learn payoff matrix for a criminal

Answer 10

Now

Question 11

Economic incentives for criminals? (2)

Answer 11

High U rate
Money incentive (eg. Theft)

Question 12

Other incentives of criminals? (3)

Answer 12

Crime of passion, misjudgement of gains from crime, belief won’t be caught

Question 13

Example of how unemployment rate affects crime?

Answer 13

US in 80s and 90s, labour market prospects fell for unskilled men and crime rates rose

Question 14

Examples of other factors that can affect crime?

Answer 14

Abortion legalisation
Harsh prison terms
Innovative policing strategies

Question 15

Main method to deter crime, and explanation of why they have to be in combination?

Answer 15

Certainty + severity

If only increase certainty it can be expensive and lead to a ‘police state’

If only increase severity, excessive sanctions -> excessive attempts to avoid them

Tf combination of both

Question 16

Correlation between severity+certainty and crime rate?

Answer 16

Negative

Question 17

Why is the optimal level of crime positive?

Answer 17

It would cost too much to eliminate it completely

Question 18

Correlation between number of offences and arrests per offence?

Answer 18

Negative

Question 19

Correlation between number of police and crime levels?

Answer 19

Negative

Question 20

Rough cost of imprisonment for UK prisoner?

Answer 20

£40000/yr

Question 21

What does z equal in Becker’s equation when there is a death penalty?

Answer 21

Infinity

Question 22

What is the brutalisation effect? What is the evidence for this?

Answer 22

When death penalty is used it devalues human life -> increase in homocide

5 countries with highest homocide rate but no death penalty: 21.6murders/100,000

’ ‘ but use death penalty: 41.6murders/100,000

Question 23

3 statistical issues in studying crime?

Answer 23

International comparisons: difficult due to different definitions of crimes, also different data collection methods

National comparisons: similar offences can go into different categories, stats from police reports may be different to what courts decide overall, officers may incorrectly report crimes

Over time: methods in data recording can change tf economists have to look at counterfactual data to estimate what would’ve happened without the treatment

Question 24

What is a structural break?

Answer 24

Introduced into empirical analysis by studying time periods through different models; used when there is no counterfactual