Malice Aforethought

Phil Curry

Review of Law & Economics, 2017, vol. 13, issue 1, 18

Abstract: This paper examines why criminal intent matters in sentencing. In particular, it considers two types of crimes, opportunistic and premeditated. Opportunistic crimes are ones that present themselves to a criminal and can be deterred if the victim makes it too costly for the criminal through private property protection. Premeditated crimes are ones sought out by the criminal, and the effect of private property protection is simply to displace crime. This difference between deterrence and displacement leads to the result that it is optimal to punish premeditated crimes more. The extent to which this is true, however, lies in the response by potential victims. If victims protect themselves from premeditated crimes in ways that also protect them from opportunistic ones, then the difference in penalties is relatively less.

Keywords: crime; private property protection; criminal intent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 K14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1515/rle-2015-0032

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