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Sunday, October 04, 2009
Law - "A Smarter (and Cost-Efficient) Way to Fight Crime"
In the "Economic View" column today in the NY Times, Robert H. Frank's article begins:
LAW enforcement policy in the United States rests implicitly on the “rational actor” model of traditional economics, which holds that people take only those actions whose benefits exceed their costs.This model says that crime will be deterred if the expected punishment is strong enough — a prediction that has not been borne out in practice. Although long sentences are now common and the incarceration rate is five times what it was during most of the 20th century, the crime rate is still two and a half times the average of 1950-62.
Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, says there is a better way. In a new book, “When Brute Force Fails”, he argues that instead of making punishments more severe, the authorities should increase the odds that lawbreakers will be apprehended and punished quickly.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 4, 2009 06:13 PM
Posted to General Law Related