{"title":"The broken-windows theory of crime: A Bayesian approach","authors":"Thomas J. Miceli, Kathleen Segerson","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2024.106233","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The broken-windows theory of crime is based on the idea that aggressive enforcement of petty crimes, like misdemeanors, will have a deterring effect on would-be perpetrators of more serious crimes. This paper develops a model of this theory that depends on three factors: (1) potential offenders make decisions about committing crimes based on their beliefs about the probability of apprehension; (2) those beliefs depend on prior observations or knowledge about the rate of petty crimes; and (3) there is a linkage across criminal categories (minor vs. serious crimes) as a component of actual enforcement policy. Our results show that even if these factors are all present, increased enforcement of low-harm crimes does not necessarily lead to fewer high-harm crimes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"80 ","pages":"Article 106233"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Review of Law and Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014481882400053X","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The broken-windows theory of crime is based on the idea that aggressive enforcement of petty crimes, like misdemeanors, will have a deterring effect on would-be perpetrators of more serious crimes. This paper develops a model of this theory that depends on three factors: (1) potential offenders make decisions about committing crimes based on their beliefs about the probability of apprehension; (2) those beliefs depend on prior observations or knowledge about the rate of petty crimes; and (3) there is a linkage across criminal categories (minor vs. serious crimes) as a component of actual enforcement policy. Our results show that even if these factors are all present, increased enforcement of low-harm crimes does not necessarily lead to fewer high-harm crimes.
期刊介绍：
The International Review of Law and Economics provides a forum for interdisciplinary research at the interface of law and economics. IRLE is international in scope and audience and particularly welcomes both theoretical and empirical papers on comparative law and economics, globalization and legal harmonization, and the endogenous emergence of legal institutions, in addition to more traditional legal topics.
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