Let the Punishment Fit the Criminal

Javier Donna and Jose Espin Sanchez

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We investigate the role of punishment progressivity and individual characteristics in the determination of crime. To analyze welfare implications we model individuals’ re- sponse to judges’ optimal punishment in a dynamic setting. We introduce two distinctive features motivated by our empirical setting. First, judges rarely imposes maximum pun- ishment for first time offenders. Instead, we observe low fines (or just a warning) even when crime detection technology is efficient and punishment is not costly. We account for this by allowing an unobservable (to the judge) individual state to be correlated with a public signal (the environment). This generates an optimal punishment that is conditional on individual observables. Second, judges punishments follow a progressive system: con- ditioning on type, recidivists are punished harsher than first-time offenders for the same crime. We account for these dynamics by introducing a persistent unobservable (to the judge) component. Judges update their beliefs about individuals depending on whether they committed a crime in the previous period; this gives rise to progressivity in the opti- mal punishment system. For the empirical analysis we examine a novel trial data set from a self-governed community of farmers in Southern Spain. We find that judges vary the degree of imposed punishments based on individual characteristics—such as when victims or accused have a Don honorific title indicating they are wealthy. Recidivists are punished harsher than first time offenders.

Keywords: Auctions; Contracts; Crime; Fines; Punishment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 D44 K14 K42 L14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/90053/9/MPRA_paper_90053.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/91566/1/MPRA_paper_91566.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/121037/1/MPRA_paper_121037.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

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