Crime Reporting: Profiling and Neighbourhood Observation

Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay and Kalan Chatterjee

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of Birmingham

Abstract: We consider the effect of giving incentives to ordinary citizens to report po- tential criminal activity. Additionally we look at the effect of "profiling" and biased reporting. If police single out or profile a group for more investiga- tion, then crime in the profiled group decreases. If a certain group is reported on more frequently through biased reporting by citizens, crime in the group reported on actually increases. In the second model, we consider a neigh- bourhood structure where individuals get information on possible criminal activity by neighbours on one side and decide whether to report or not based on the signal. When costs of reporting are low relative to the cost of being investigated, costs of investigation are increasing in the number of reports and there is at least one biased individual, we show there is a "contagion equilibrium" where everyone reports his or her neighbour.

Keywords: Neighbourhood; crime reporting and profiling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2010-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-reg, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://repec.cal.bham.ac.uk/pdf/06-04.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Crime Reporting: Profiling and Neighbourhood Observation (2010)
Working Paper: Crime Reporting: Profiling and Neighbourhood Observation (2010)
Working Paper: Crime Reporting: Profiling and Neighbourhood Observation (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bir:birmec:06-04

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