Another Ross Gittins article for you - this time related to crime. The link is here.
Personally, I always find it interesting when economics is applied to some non-traditional areas. How can we use our resources more efficiently to reduce crime? Gittins makes a great point about the severity of the punishment being less important that the swiftness with which it is administered. Look at the U.S. - many states still have the death penalty, but inmates usually wait YEARS for their punishment (if it ever comes at all). And the U.S. crime rate? Still substantial for a Western country.
Obviously, there are numerous factors at play when it comes to the determinants of crime, and the type and swiftness of the punishment are only 2 of them. From an econometric perspective, there is also an endogeneity issue at play when modelling and explaining the crime rate - some of the explanatory variables are jointly determined with the crime rate. For example, you would think that increasing the number of police officers would reduce the about of crime. But you would also think that if the crime rate went up, the number of police officers hired would increase. This is endogeneity, and must be carefully dealt with by the analyst in their model.
So given this article, what policies would you put in place to reduce crime and potentially reduce the cost to taxpayers?
Freakonomics had an article about this a while ago and crime is a regular focus of their podcasts - http://www.freakonomics.com/2009/01/07/cook-ludwig-and-mccrary-setting-the-agenda-for-fighting-crime/
ReplyDeleteThe article is based on the American system but there are still some interesting ideas there.
Thanks for your comment Peter, and great link! Are there any issues raised in that Freakonomics article or in Gittins' article that you think are particularly interesting or would like to expand on? Is there anything you think Australia could learn from the U.S. in terms of managing crime, or vice versa? I'd be interested in your opinion, and that of any other readers.
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