Crime Flashcards
How is a crime survey carried out?
Select representative sample of addresses and ask people if they’ve experienced crime in past 12months
Name another measure of crime?
Police record
3 main things crime economists look at?
Incentives behind crime
CBA of different strategies to reduce crime
The way decisions interact
3 economic features of criminals?
Low education (2/3 don’t finish high school)
Unemployment
Low average test qualification score
3 similarities between criminals and victims?
From low income groups
Blacks more likely than whites
Males primary victims of violent crimes (bar rape)
Costs of crime to the criminal? (3)
Prison time, fines, community service, consequences and opportunity cost of doing prison time
Costs of crime to society? (4)
Expenditure on: police, judicial system, running prisons, collecting fines etc
Also damage to victims and others
2 benefits of crime(one for criminal and one for society)?
Pays better hourly wage
Combination of crime and legal work boosts GDP
What is Becker’s model?
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
Learn payoff matrix for a criminal
Now
Economic incentives for criminals? (2)
High U rate Money incentive (eg. Theft)
Other incentives of criminals? (3)
Crime of passion, misjudgement of gains from crime, belief won’t be caught
Example of how unemployment rate affects crime?
US in 80s and 90s, labour market prospects fell for unskilled men and crime rates rose
Examples of other factors that can affect crime?
Abortion legalisation
Harsh prison terms
Innovative policing strategies
Main method to deter crime, and explanation of why they have to be in combination?
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
Correlation between severity+certainty and crime rate?
Negative
Why is the optimal level of crime positive?
It would cost too much to eliminate it completely
Correlation between number of offences and arrests per offence?
Negative
Correlation between number of police and crime levels?
Negative
Rough cost of imprisonment for UK prisoner?
£40000/yr
What does z equal in Becker’s equation when there is a death penalty?
Infinity
What is the brutalisation effect? What is the evidence for this?
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
3 statistical issues in studying crime?
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
What is a structural break?
Introduced into empirical analysis by studying time periods through different models; used when there is no counterfactual
