Citation

Clements MT. Int. Rev. Law Econ. 2003; 23(3): 237-251.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.irle.2003.09.006

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

When one victim's precautions against crime have spillover benefits to other victims, individuals do not take the socially optimal amount of precaution. I explore the use of criminal sanctions as a mechanism to correct this: criminals are punished based on the level of precaution taken by the victim. The problem is compounded when victims have private information about their costs of precaution. I find that, when a sanctioning scheme is used to induce different levels of precaution from high- and low-cost victims, a sanction less than the maximum may be used to punish crimes against either type of victim. I also consider the extent to which such a mechanism is consistent with current legal doctrine.