Citation

Davidovitch L, Ben-Haim Y. Law Probab. Risk 2011; 10(1): 59-76.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/lpr/mgq012

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The economic theory of crime views criminals as rational decision makers, implying elastic response to law enforcement. Group-dependent elasticities can be exploited for efficient allocation of enforcement resources. However, profiling can augment both number of arrests and total crime since non-profiled groups will increase their criminality. Elasticities are highly uncertain, so prediction is difficult and uncertainty must be accounted for in designing a profiling strategy. We use info-gap theory for satisficing (not minimizing) total crime rate. Using an empirical example, based on running red lights, we demonstrate the trade-off between robustness to uncertainty and total crime rate.

Language: en