Young Criminals Don't Respond to Incentives?
This Slate article discusses a new econometric study that apparently shows juvenile criminals don't lower their criminal behavior when they become 18 and can receive stiffer penalties.
On the one hand, as a libertarian (not to mention a pacifist) I love stuff like this: The State fails in its use of stolen tax dollars and barbaric punishments!
On the other hand, as an economist this shocks me. Even though I believe crime rates would drop if the State got out of the prison market altogether, even so I would have predicted that increasing the penalties on a particular crime, holding all else equal, would lower its occurence.
Any thoughts?
Comments (27)
Two thoughts:
1. Probably can't hold everything equal in a study like that.
2. Offering criminals free room and board (3 hots and a cot) can hardly be called a "stiff penalty".
Published: February 7, 2007 4:24 PM
Two more thoughts:
(1) Time-preference is already so high that an increase in possible penalty is irrelevant compared to an unchanged immediate gain.
(2) It seems plausible that the younger the criminal, the less likely his time preference would ever decrease; instead his every mental connection and every social experience only reinforces an increasing time-preference.
Published: February 7, 2007 4:38 PM
This report may be true because the problem is that not every jury will be willing to convict a criminal if it means giving them harsh penalties. For instance, in an extreme case, say a jury believes that a man murdered another man beyond a reasonable doubt, but that the judge could choose the death penalty for the convict or perhaps was likely to do so. In such a case, many people may find it objectionable to convict such a man because it may end up in his death. The burden of proof for these people has to be even harder to meet because they will be giving a judge opportunity to carry out harsher punishments.
In this case, an increase in the penalty may actually cause a decrease in murder convictions and an increase in murders.
Whether this was accounted for in the article Murphy cited for or whether any of the reasoning is sound is another issue. Certainly the econometric approach is invalid. But without even looking at the Slate article (I'm tired from talking for hours on ethics panels today on libertarian intellectual property rights ethics and the right of children to work) I can tell you that its conclusions could be perfectly true if the kind of causation I mention in death penalty cases takes place.
Published: February 7, 2007 4:43 PM
1. Young people have a high discount rate for danger. In other words, they don't think they'll get caught. Many young criminals have very high self-esteem and think they're smarter than everyone else, including the police.
2. The risk/reward ratio is low. Young criminals have a low chance of getting caught and the reward is very high. The odds of getting caught are a much greater deterrent than actual punishment if a criminal gets caught.
Just curious, but why does Murphy "...believe crime rates would drop if the State got out of the prison market altogether..."?
Published: February 7, 2007 5:12 PM
As our Government grows older, its crimes have only gotten more severe and pervasive... I don't understand why any other criminal should be expected to behave differently.
But seriously, without looking at the study, why should we expect a 17-year old getting busted for drugs not get busted when he/she is 18 instead? As for real crimes, why should expect violent behavior, especially violent behavior which occurs out of a "moment" of anger/rage, to decline because of some type of difference in (potential) criminal penalties? I don't believe there is any reason to expect the criminal code's differentiation between "juvenile" and "adult" penalties to affect a criminals' behavior all that much overall.
Published: February 7, 2007 5:54 PM
Two thoughts
1)George Bush I "the cause of crime, criminals"
2)Charles Darwin "the cause of crime, criminals"
Detect a pattern here?
Published: February 7, 2007 7:04 PM
"2. The risk/reward ratio is low. Young criminals have a low chance of getting caught and the reward is very high. The odds of getting caught are a much greater deterrent than actual punishment if a criminal gets caught."
I agree with this point and also the fact that many young people increase their "criminal" behavior when they go off to college. I'm guessing because the risk of getting caught goes down (no parents and the probability of getting caught by police stays even, but more than likely it goes down since you don't have to party in the suburbs where neighbors call the cops) and because the reward of social acceptance increases (how many people stay in on Saturdays at most universities?).
On the other hand this analysis doesn't apply to "juveniles" not in college or university.
Published: February 7, 2007 7:42 PM
Time preference is an adequate explanation for me. The punishments are in the future and the time preference rate is high enough to reduce the present value to minimal. No matter how severe the punishment, minimal is minimal.
Published: February 7, 2007 9:42 PM
The juvis are schools for criminals. That is where many criminal ideas and experiences are exchanged.
While finding criminals can be a daunting task, the state makes it easy and convenient by creating a warm social forum environment for the criminally inclined.
Published: February 7, 2007 10:32 PM
I once read a magazine article which claimed that the major deterrent to crime was the chance of getting caught, or not. The size of the penalty won't matter if you don't respect the police! How efficient are your police?
Published: February 8, 2007 12:20 AM
In my opinion, the penalty matter a lot, Cause it would somehow prevent these criminals from doing the act. Just like in Japan, as far as I know less crimes were committed because of their grave punishment
Published: February 8, 2007 1:50 AM
I haven't read the actual study, so I am unable to say whether or not their sample is large enough, but according to the Slate account they saw a sizeable decrease in criminal behavior from 17 to 19, but no sizeable decrease from the weeks before and the weeks after their 18th birthday. It could that these specific weeks mere coincidences raising their arrest rate (either because of fluctuations in actual criminal behavior or the police's success in detecting the crimes) or lowering them before.
Moreover, the increase in risk of imprisoned wasn't really that great, from 3% to 17%, meaning that it was still fairly unlikely to be imprisoned.
Published: February 8, 2007 4:25 AM
No one has asked if the use of statistics and calculus of probabilities are proper methods when dealing with the law & economics.
Economists (and some commentators here without actually saying so or realizing it) are used to working with the expected utility and state preference theories so that agents (in this case those young criminals) will have subjective estimates on probabilities concerning various states of the world and their associated payoffs. So agents commit crimes when discounted benefits exceed costs.
But do these criminals actually formulate their behaviour or actions by using this background (or do they act as if they are using)? How many people can calculate these probabilities or give them any meaning?
I dont know if criminal behavior is a deviation from some norm of "normality" or is it just based on calculation of benefits and costs. It's easy to accept that economic crimes (embezzlement, forgery etc) can be explained by these theories but what about other crimes. And it's good to remember that state can make almost any behavior illegal.
Published: February 8, 2007 6:29 AM
This issue is caused by the same things it has always been cause by:
1. Profits: The prohibitions against voluntary acts by adults: Porn, prostitution, drugs, alcohol AGAIN and now tobacco have increased profits in these activities and the young people want the money so they continue to pursue these activities after turning 18.
2. Misallocation of resources: Law enforcement is busy on the activities listed in 1, and in the business of stopping minor offenses like speeding, and fighting "White Collar Crime" (accounting, securities, insurance frauds). They do not have time for real criminals. Even if they do pursue real criminals for real crimes these criminals will plead good sentences because the prisions are full of the aformentioned people.
3. Too many police resources: States and Municipalities have taken money to "Put more cops on the streets" (To stop activities in 1) and now are stuck with over sized police forces that need money. So they go to activities like cameras on streets and lots of traffic cops where they can get money instead of fighting real crime.
Solutions:
1. End voluntary non crimes.
2. End white collar crims and put these in the CIVIL claim system.
3. Stop the feds from paying states and locals money for their jobs.
4. Do anything to end the monopoly of violence and punishment by the state.
5. Have the criminals pay restitution to the victims not the state or society.
Published: February 8, 2007 8:28 AM
To put lyle's point another way, true criminals (as opposed to people selling each other weed) are creatures of impulse. They lack the intelligence to calculate risk beyond the immediate presence of a police officer or armed citizen. They may also be pathological individuals acting on an overriding compulsion.
I can also validate Adam's point. For many criminals, prison is the best shot they have at hot meals, medical care, legal assistance, purposeful activity, and room and board.
To address RogerM's question, I believe criminality would decrease in the absence of the state prison complex for the following reasons:
1. Religious morality is displaced by the socialist/democratic state, and is correspondingly strengthened in its absence.
2. Many criminals are alive to commit crimes only because the state makes it illegal to kill them.
Published: February 8, 2007 9:57 AM
Several thousand years ago Socrates demonstrated logically that moral people are happier than immoral people and wondered why people act immorally. He concluded that people are crazy.
In the same way, the doctrine of our sin nature is the one demonstrable truth of Christianity. Whatever the reason, people are crazy.
Published: February 8, 2007 11:05 AM
It may be that there is "stickiness" at the borderline between legality and criminality. That is, thinking like a non-criminal, planning within the rules and not contemplating criminal misconduct carries with it an emotional weight -- a weight brought on, perhaps, by sympathy as well as other factors -- that adds pressure to avoid breaking the law, and this is above and beyond immediate calculations of costs. Once you cross that border repeatedly, this "stickiness" works the other way: one may generally come to prefer criminality to legal co-operation, and seem stuck in the behavior of criminality, despite much mounting of costs.
That is, the taboo against criminality carries its own weight to the legal portion of the population, and it's not just a matter of costs and benefits. But break the taboo repeatedly, and one defines oneself as a criminal, and thinks primarily in criminal ways. The taboo itself -- and the institutions that prop it up -- become the enemy. One becomes somewhat resistant to the normal calculation of costs.
This being the case, then, one would expect the MANNER of criminality to change, according to costs, not criminality as such, at least among the core group of offenders (young males, in point of fact). If enforcement increases for robbery, burglary might then go up. (Celerity, as Bentham instructed, is key; enforcement, not published penalties, would likely be the most noticeable factor.)
Over time, though, the hopelessness of the criminal way of life becomes apparent. Most male criminals, as they age, reform.
And most criminals are male.
This almost certainly has something to do with hormones and questions of hormonal and psychological balance.
For what it's worth, Socrates's "logical" proof of happiness never struck me as very persuasive. I will agree, though, that a robust rationality is something that only some people aspire towards, and many fail at achieving. Every one of us fail at some point or another.
The rationality spoken of by economists is part fiction and part conceptual tool, and does not really address the issue of a full-blown moral rationality that moral philosophers talk about. I guess one could say, then, that people tend to be a bit "crazy," and that circumstance and training lifts people out of a normal carelessness in extremely unequal measures.
Intelligence is a factor, but not the only one. We know, with increasing evidence, that subtle situational incentives also factor in.
Published: February 8, 2007 12:18 PM
billwald:
Guess I have to agree with you that people are crazy.
Just watched a news break that Anna Nicole Smith just died suddenly, probably an OD. Definately an example of a gold digging whore meeting a just end. Evidently Meth was the drug of choice. And evidently the baby test positive for meth as well. She got what she deserved.
Published: February 8, 2007 2:56 PM
You guys are a kick. Everyone working overtime to rationalize an outcome that goes against the grain of your belief system. Theories abound, except for the forbidden one: Our belief system is flat wrong.
Published: February 9, 2007 11:56 PM
A thought occurrs - the majority of opportunities for committing crime post-juvi are probably successful. The few that do get picked up as adults probably do see their likelihood of re-offending go down, but it takes 2-10 years to see this. The ones who don't learn end up in the system for good.
tom; You're kidding, right?
Published: February 10, 2007 12:33 AM
Well, a little bit, but not too much. I don't know anything about this study, so I really don't have much of an opinion on it one way or the other. But I have now read up a bit on Rothbard and anarcho-capitalism, and given the heavy praise of him throughout this blog, I find the whole belief system strange. The whole idea of somehow believing that an organized, modern society could exist without the state seems bizarre on a number of levels. For starters, one would think that the fact that no such society has ever existed, let alone sustained itself, would incline a person to think there must be some inherent barriers to such an arrangement. After pondering that, it should only take a person 5 minutes or so to come up with a not-so-short list of said barriers. The idea seems to be that if you can assume a way the conflicts between men that have afflicted all societies, no form of governance would be required.
Kind of reminds me of the joke about a physicist, mathematician, and economist stranded on a desert island. They have a can of food, and are trying to come up with a means of opening it. The physicist suggests devising a lever using a sharp rock. The mathematician goes to work on a calculation of the leverage required for this device. The economist declares an easier approach, saying "First, let's assume we have a can opener..."
I'm sure it sounds harsh, but it seems like the whole thing is a way to assert solutions to the world's problems without ever having to worry about them being tested.
Published: February 10, 2007 1:21 AM
Tom, I read Levitt's and Dubner's Freakonomics yesterday and they are convinced that criminals have same economic incentives as other people. You could say that being seller of crack is similar of career choice as being worker at McDonald's.
My earlier post contained some critical remarks concerning these ideas though..
Published: February 10, 2007 1:28 AM
For starters, one would think that the fact that no such society has ever existed, let alone sustained itself, would incline a person to think there must be some inherent barriers to such an arrangement.
And if you'd been around a couple of hundred years ago, you'd have said the same of someone who suggested the kind of democratic government we have today. You'd obviously have been wrong then, too!
Published: February 10, 2007 4:38 AM
Peter,
Touche. Point taken. You are right that we shouldn't use history as our blueprint for what is possible in the future. Still, I am dubious about the prospects for anarchism. What I find intriguing about libertarian philosophy is that it has much in common with Marxism even as its followers regard their viewpoint as diametrically opposing. Both are utopian philosophies that dream of a stateless world where everyone shares a unified view of man's nature. The two do, however, differ on their conception of man's nature. Marxists dreams of a world where no man refuses to help another; a libertarian dreams of a world where no man would dare to ask for any.
Published: February 11, 2007 12:23 PM
Yes, in fact, it does have a lot in common with Marxism, as Rothbard pointed out. Marx went wrong in two important ways: (1) the labor theory of value, and (2) the class conflict he proposed was between business owners and workers; if you replace the first with the correct (Austrian) theory of value and understand that the real conflict is between political and market power (i.e., coercion and peace), and redo Marx's analysis, you'll come to the same conclusions as Rothbard and Hoppe (Hoppe used to be a Marxist, I believe) But you're wrong about anarcho-capitalism being utopian, and I can't imagine where you came up with the content of your last sentence!
Published: February 11, 2007 5:29 PM
About libertarians hoping that no man would dare to ask for help from another? That's based on an Ayn Rand essay in which she said altruism was evil. Her essay was very explicit: It wasn't simply that it should be up to the individual whether or not to give help; she called it an act of evil to act out in that way. That was a long time ago (20 plus years), but it has stuck in my memory, because it is what caused me to lose interest in her philosophy. My bad if my memory is faulty, or if the Rothbards break rank with the Objectivists on that issue. So far, I'm detecting about a 90% overlap in just about everything else I've heard and read about the libertarian philosophy versus Objectivism. Let me know if I'm wrong.
Published: February 11, 2007 5:44 PM
You're wrong. I suspect you're misinterpreting Rand, too, but you should note that Rand wasn't a libertarian - she hated libertarians, in fact.
[FWIW, Rothbard wrote a play about Ayn Rand. Very funny, and such hilariously recognizable characters. It's called "Mozart Was A Red", and you'll find a video production of it on this site if you look]
Published: February 11, 2007 7:29 PM