Accomplice-Witnesses, Organized Crime and Corruption: Theory and Evidence from Italy

Antonio Acconcia (), Giovanni Immordino, Salvatore Piccolo () and Patrick Rey
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Patrick Rey: Toulouse School of Economics and IDEI

CSEF Working Papers from Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy

Abstract: Since 1991 the Italian Legislator grants amnesties, protection and even economic bene.ts to former mobsters cooperating with the justice. These incentives were intro- duced to break down omertà. What is the economic logic behind this policy? Did the program succeed? To address these issues we develop a model accounting for the main trade-o¤s involved in the introduction of accomplice-witnesses regulations. We argue that rewarding informants is sometimes necessary to .ght organized crime and show how the optimal amnesty varies with the e¤ectiveness of the protection program, the reliability of the informants.testimonies, the strength of external complicities, and the internal cohesion between criminal partners. The optimal policy sti.es crime, spurs prosecution and induce a negative relationship between the number of talkers and the conviction rate. The available evidence supports the model.s predictions.

Keywords: Accomplice-witnesses; Criminal Organizations; Leniency; Whistle-Blower (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-soc
Date: 2009-06-10, Revised 2009-10-17

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sef:csefwp:232

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