Crime, deterrence and punishment revisited
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Crime, deterrence and punishment revisited Maurice J. G. Bun1 · Richard Kelaher2 · Vasilis Sarafidis3 · Don Weatherburn4 Received: 17 March 2016 / Accepted: 22 June 2019 © The Author(s) 2019
Abstract Despite an abundance of empirical evidence on crime spanning over 40 years, there exists no consensus on the impact of the criminal justice system on crime activity. We construct a new panel data set that contains all relevant variables prescribed by economic theory. Our identification strategy allows for a feedback relationship between crime and deterrence variables, and it controls for omitted variables and measurement error. We deviate from the majority of the literature in that we specify a dynamic model, which captures the essential feature of habit formation and persistence in aggregate behaviour. Our results show that the criminal justice system exerts a large influence on crime activity. Increasing the risk of apprehension and conviction is more influential in reducing crime than raising the expected severity of punishment. Keywords Crime · Deterrence · Feedback · Omitted variable bias · Measurement error · Panel data · GMM JEL Classification C23 · C36 · K42
This article greatly benefited from comments made by the editor and two anonymous referees. We are grateful to Eddie Anderson and Frank Windmeijer for useful comments and suggestions. We would also like to thank seminar participants at the Statistical Society of Australia (NSW branch) and the NSW Bureau of Crime statistics and Research. The usual disclaimer applies. Maurice J. G. Bun: The research of the author has been funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) Vernieuwingsimpuls research grant ‘Causal Inference with Panel Data’. Vasilis Sarafidis: The research of the author has been by the Australian Research Council (ARC) under research grant number DP-170103135.
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Maurice J. G. Bun [email protected] Vasilis Sarafidis [email protected]
Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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M. J. G. Bun
1 Introduction Crime, originating from the root of Latin cerno¯ (‘I decide, I give judgment’), is the behaviour judged by the State to be in violation of the prevailing norms that underpin the moral code of society. Where informal social controls are not sufficient to deter such behaviour, the State may intervene to punish or reform those responsible through the criminal justice system. The precise sanctions imposed depend on the type of crime and the prevailing cultural norms of the society. For offences deemed to be serious, criminal justice systems have historically imprisoned those responsible, in the hope that a combination of deterrence and incapacitation may lower the crime rate. According to an estimate, about 10 million people in the world are institutionalized for punishment, almost half of which are held in America, China and the UK (Walmsley 2009). Over the past 30 years, the American prison population has more than quadrupled. Raphael and Stoll (2009) have shown that the increase in the US prison populat
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