Bayesian Juries and The Limits to Deterrence

Ezra Friedman () and Abraham L. Wickelgren

The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 2006, vol. 22, issue 1, 70-86

Abstract: We consider a model of crime with rational Bayesian Jurors. We find that if jurors are not perfectly informed, even when there is no limit to the size of the punishment that can be imposed, it is not possible to deter all crime. There is a finite lower bound on the crime rate which results from the difficulties in achieving a conviction with imperfect evidence and very low crime rates. Crime can not be reduced below this rate by increasing the penalty, but the lower bound can be decreased by improving the quality of evidence presented to jurors, or by increasing the threshold of evidence necessary for prosecution. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jleo/ewj007 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Bayesian Juries and The Limits to Deterrence
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:oup:jleorg:v:22:y:2006:i:1:p:70-86

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization is currently edited by Andrea Prat

More articles in The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().