Leniency Can Increase Deterrence

Alexander Lundberg

International Review of Law and Economics, 2019, vol. 60, issue C

Abstract: Police discretion raises deterrence if the odds of lenient treatment fall with the severity of the crime. Leniency also provides an incentive for citizens to cooperate with law enforcement. When the police discover a crime, a guilty citizen decides whether to share any information. If such cooperation ever reveals a secondary crime, a citizen only shares information if the police sometimes reduce penalties for the initial crime. Thus, when citizens are multiply active in crime, discretion is a further tool for deterrence. Generous discounts induce universal cooperation, and the possibility of being caught for a secondary crime reduces the incentive to invest in every crime.

Keywords: Crime; Deterrence; Law enforcement; Leniency; Police discretion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H00 K14 K40 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144818819301814
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:60:y:2019:i:c:s0144818819301814

DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2019.105862

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Law and Economics is currently edited by C. Ott, A. W. Katz and H-B. Schäfer

More articles in International Review of Law and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().