Studying the Crime Commission Act Measuring criminal behavior Economic model of crime choices Empirical work on what policies affect crime?
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Studying the Crime Commission Act Measuring criminal behavior Economic model of crime choices What policies affect crime?
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Measuring Crime
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Measuring Crime
• 1997:
• Reports, 1997:
– 13.5 million crimes reported to police. – 5079 crimes per 100,000 – Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program
– 13.5 million crimes reported to police. – 5079 crimes per 100,000
• Individual victimization surveys, 1997 – 36.8 million crimes reported by victims – 13845 crimes per 100,000
• What to think of reliability of this statistic?
• Source: National Victimization Survey
• Recall reasons for discrepancy 5
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Police versus Victimization Reports
Another Source of Data • Self reports – Example: – 2.6% of adults reported that they had committed a felony in the past year
• Why use this data? • Problems with this data?
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Who commits crimes?
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Why?
• You guys do • 72% of persons arrested were aged 13-34
• Why age difference?
– 32% of the population
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Who commits crimes?
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Why?
• You GUYS do
• Why a gender difference?
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Who Commits Crimes?
Who Commits Crimes?
• Large Racial differences
• Large Racial differences
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Why?
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Who Commits Crimes?
• Why a racial difference?
• Large educational differences • 1991 survey of prison inmates: – 2/3 had not graduated from high school – Note: Many obtained GED
• 12% of all male high school dropouts were incarcerated in 1993. More today. • Ok, so not you guys. 15
Why Educational Difference?
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Who Commits Crimes? • A few people do. Crimes are concentrated • Original study: – Philadelphia, 1945. 18% of delinquents comm. 52% of crimes.
• Recent estimates – California: upper half of offenders commit 10.6 crimes per year
• Implication: – High recidivism 17
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Why high concentration?
Time Series of Crime • Huge crime wave in 60s, 70s • Big reduction in crime in late 90s • Huge increase in arrests
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Implication of Arrests
Todays lecture
• What ought to have happened to crime rate as arrests sky rocketed? • Recall: high concentration of crimes • Crime should have dropped to zero. • Why didn’t it?
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Studying the Crime Commission Act Measuring criminal behavior Economic model of crime choices What policies affect crime?
– Criminality increasing – Other criminals coming in • Need a framework for understanding supply (& “Demand” for Crime). 21
Criminal Behavior as choice
Criminal Behavior as choice • Net Benefits of committing crime
• Net Benefits of committing crime
(1 − p ) U (C ) − {p U ( S ) 123 123 1 23
Not Caught Benefit
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(1 − p ) U (C ) − {p U ( S ) 123 123 1 23
Caught Penalty
Not Caught Benefit
Caught Penalty
• Opportunity Cost
• Compare to 0?
U (W ) 123
Market Wage 23
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Demand and Supply Framework
Equilibrium
• Supply of crime – Benefits of crime • Wage rates, unemployment
Crime
Demand
• “Demand” for crime
Supply
– Prevention activities • Threat of incarceration
Benefits from Crime 25
Change in Penalties
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Incapacitation effect How to think about incapacitation effect here?
Crime
Demand Supply
Benefits from Crime 27
Incapacitation effect
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Perfect Crowd Out Case
How to think about incapacitation effect here? Crime
Demand
Crime
Demand
Supply
Supply
Benefits from Crime
Benefits from Crime 29
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Lesson
Empirical Evidence for Model • Relation between Unemployment and Crime
• Incapacitation doesn’t result in 1 for 1 crowd out of crime because there is a supply curve.
– Some in time series/state panel • Too small to explain variation in crime • High estimate: 1 point increase in unemployment leads to 1.1% drop in property crime
• Unemployed more likely to commit crimes – Some evidence – Transitional Aid Research Project (return to later) 31
Empirical Evidence for Model
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Can this model explain other facts? • Education?
• Why such a low link? • Not a tradeoff?
• Race?
– Experienced drug dealers often hold legal jobs
• Gender?
• Why? • Concentration amongst few people?
– Only those on verge of incarceration show great reduction in crime
• Geographic concentration?
• Effect of Sanctions • Time Series? 33
Todays lecture • • • •
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Policies and Questions
Studying the Crime Commission Act Measuring criminal behavior Economic model of crime choices What policies affect crime?
• Cost Effectiveness of Imprisonment – Is imprisonment worth it? • Should we do more? • Should we do less?
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Estimating Benefits of Crime Prevention
Estimating costs-Problems • Should a dollar stolen really count as a dollar lost to society?
• Zedlewski early application • Calculate aggregate costs of crime
– Allocation? Redistribution?
– C = E- L + G – Cost of crime equals:
• Should we really value the disutility of punishment at zero? – What if we fined criminals $1000?
• Efficiency costs. What are these? • Losses incurred • Gains to criminals if any
• Should we not place value on ensuring equal treatment? • Should we not value material losses of poor more than the wealthy? • Should we not consider long run costs/benefits?
• What does this exclude? – Cost to criminals? – Longer run costs/benefits? 37
Zedlewski
Calculating costs of crime • Estimate aggregate costs of crime • Look at expenditures on crime prevention
• Step 1: Calculate cost of confinement – $20,000 per annum. – What might be missing here?
Expenditure – 1983 Billions
• Step 2: Calculate costs of crime
Firearms
– How to do this practically? – Zedlewski’s approach. Estimate total expenditures on crime prevention. Divide by # of crimes. Why is this an approximation? 39
Calculating Costs of Crime
0.3
Guard dogs
4.2
Victim losses
35.4
Criminal justice
33.8
Commercial security
26.1
Total:
99.8
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Zedlewski
• Compute total crimes – How? – Self reports
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• Step 1: Calculate cost of confinement
Crimes - 1983* (Millions)
– $20,000 per annum. – What might be missing here?
Violence
5
Robbery
1.4
Burglary
7.5
Larceny
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Total
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• Step 2: Calculate costs of crime – Roughly $2300 per crime
• Step 3: Net Benefit of imprisonment – Benefit: Cost of crimes averted*number of crimes – How to measure number of crimes averted? – Zedlewski: Use # of crimes reported by those in jail. 41
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Number of crimes
Total Calculation
• Self reported number of crimes
• Benefits = 187*($2300) • Costs= $25,000 • Ratio: (187*2300)/25000 = 17 to 1 benefit to cost ratio. • Implications
– 187 is mean number of crimes in questionnaire to inmates
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Problems?
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Problems
• What are the problems?
• Marginal versus average criminal • Is 187 realistic? • What are we assuming about supply of crime?
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Observation
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Dilulio=Piehl • Step 1: Calculate cost of confinement
• Mean number of crimes: 187 • Median in same survey: 15
– $25,000 per annum.
• Step 2: Calculate costs of crime
– Why such a discrepancy
– Jury awards for victims
• What happens to cost benefit if we use 15?
• Step 3: Net Benefit of imprisonment – Cost of Imprisonment – Benefit: Cost of crimes averted*number of crimes
– 1.38
• What happens if we use 10? – .92
• Very similar approach 47
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Social Costs of Crime
Number of Crimes
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Costs per offender
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Costs per offender
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Net Benefits
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Problems • Deep problems with number of crimes per prisoner calculations • Distortions in self-reports of crime – Self reports of arrests – Those with few arrests underestimate. Those with many overestimate
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Problems
Problems
• Stocks and Flows
• Replacement effects. Supply of crime • Career lengths
– Those released from prison not the same as those in prison – Note this makes counterfactual (increase prison length) biased
– 20 year old committed 40 crimes last year – 20 year sentence. How many crimes averted? – 30 year sentence. How many crimes averted?
• Marginal versus average criminality – Who gets in jail? – Crimes committed right before arrest 55
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Conclusion • Estimates too noisy to say something specific • Make many assumptions that may be quite false.
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Consider a simple policy
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Estimating Effects
• Penalty for murder: 20 years • Penalty for murder: 30 years • What will the effects be?
• Regress Crime rate on: – Probability of arrest/conviction – Sentence Length
• Look for legal changes • Can we use changes in penalty severity?
• Levitt makes interesting observation: • Prios rights groups brought suits about overcrowded prisons • Courts sometimes responded by bringing prisons under court control
– What are the problems here?
– Most often: population caps imposed – State governments respond • How might they respond? 63
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Why better than penalty changes?
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Problems?
How do we interpret this? • Does this tell us about deterrence versus incapacitation? • How could we get at this?
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Proposition 8
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Why is this a test?
• Passed June 8, 1982. Effect next day • Pre-Prop 8:
• How would you use this to test for deterrence rather than incapacitation?
– 3 year enhancement of violent felony offenders’ sentences for each prison term for violent felony – 1 year enhancement of nonviolent felony offenders’ sentence for each prior prison term
• Prop 8: All “serious” felony offenders – 5 year enhancement for each prior conviction of a serious felony or a 1 year enhancement for prior prison term for any offense. Whichever larger
• Increase range for “prior” and prohibits concurrent enhancements 69
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Social Programs • What is an alternative to incarceration? – Prevention – Social programs
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Conclusion
Thought Experiment
• Numerous social programs
• Imprison or • Target young males
– Positive impacts – Some work, some don’t
• Types: – Early intervention – High risk adolescents – Labor market interventions • Job corps 77
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Conclusion • Prevention appears better than incarceration • But all these calculations assume there is no supply of crime. • Don’t have great handle on empirics of crime yet.
