When Brute Force Fails: Strategic Thinking for Crime Control
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The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: Document Title: When Brute Force Fails: Strategic Thinking for Crime Control Author(s): Mark A.R. Kleiman Document No.: 211204 Date Received: September 2005 Award Number: 2001-IJ-CX-0033 This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally- funded grant final report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. WHEN BRUTE FORCE FAILS: Strategic Thinking for Crime Control By: Mark A.R. Kleiman School of Public Affairs University of California at Los Angeles March 31, 2005 This research was supported under award #2001-IJ-CX-0033 from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Findings and conclusions of the research reported here are those of the author and do not reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice, or of the University of California. This report would not have been completed without the devoted assistance of Kenna Ackley, Elizabeth Dodd, Paul Fishbein, Karen Friedman, Lowry Heussler, Sherol Michaeli, Owen Paun, Nicole Saloun, and Jeannie Wilkinson. This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Table of Contents I. Abstract…………………………………………………………… pg. 3 II. Executive Summary………………………………………………..pg. 6 III. Introduction………………………………………………………...pg. 9 IV. Chapter 1: Designing Enforcement Regimes……………………..pg. 16 V. Chapter 2: Crime Despite Punishment……………………………pg. 44 VI. Chapter 3: Policing and Prosecution……………………………...pg. 80 VII. Chapter 4: Probation……………………………………………...pg. 107 VIII. Chapter 5: Drugs………………………………………………….pg.136 IX. Bibliography………………………………………………………pg. 166 When Brute Force Fails 2 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. ABSTRACT While the institutions of the criminal justice system serve many goals, crime control deserves a prominent place among them. Designers of crime control strategies need to consider the responses of potential offenders to the enforcement risks they face. Insofar as potential offenders are selfishly rational – deciding to offend or not depending on the relationship between the cost of complying with the law and the risk of breaking it – and the resources needed to detect and punish any given crime are finite, the scarcity of punishment resources will tend to create a positive-feedback effect in the rate of offending. When the level of offending goes up, the result is that the punishment per offense goes down as the limited punishment capacity is stretched over a larger number of offenses. The lowered risk of punishment, in turn, will further stimulate offending. Thus crime rates under these assumptions will tend to exhibit “tipping” behavior, with both high-violation and low-violation equilibria possible given the same underlying causal situation. If, on the other hand, the punishment per crime is fixed and the total amount of punishment allowed to vary, then, if the “demand curve” for offending is normal, the total amount of punishment assigned will form an inverted U as a function of the punishment per crime; great When Brute Force Fails 3 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. lenity and great severity will both result in small amounts of actual punishment compared to moderation. These considerations suggest the great importance of concentration of enforcement: by offense, by offender, and by time and place, and of the direct communication of deterrent threats in order to minimize the cost of “tipping” a high-violation equilibrium into a low- violation equilibrium. Sanctions credibility is vital. “Broken windows” policing, “Cease-Fire”-style gang interventions, and the “coerced abstinence” (testing-and-sanctions) approach to controlling illicit drug use among probationers can all be seen as applications of this simple logic. Since universal zero tolerance is never possible in a world of finite enforcement resources, targeted zero tolerance, with clear communication of precisely what will not be tolerated, is essential, and will far outperform “equal-opportunity” approaches to enforcement. Relaxing the artificial assumption of perfect rationality among offenders to allow for such phenomena as hyperbolic discounting (excessive concern with the immediate over the distant future) and the risk-seeking behavior in losses associated with prospect theory provides additional insight into making crime control strategy, and helps explain the otherwise puzzling observation that swiftness and certainty are more important than severity in reducing offense rates. The interdependence of offense rates through enforcement swamping makes it even more When Brute Force Fails 4 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. important to learn how to effectively communicate enforcement threats and to develop and maintain sanctions credibility. When Brute Force Fails 5 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY While the institutions of the criminal justice system serve many goals, crime control deserves a prominent place among them. Designers of crime control strategies need to consider the responses of potential offenders to the enforcement risks they face. Insofar as potential offenders are selfishly rational – deciding to offend or not depending on the relationship between the cost of complying with the law and the risk of breaking it – and the resources needed to detect and punish any given crime are finite, the scarcity of punishment resources will tend to create a positive-feedback effect in the rate of offending. When the level of offending goes up, the result is that the punishment per offense goes down as the limited punishment capacity is stretched over a larger number of offenses. The lowered risk of punishment, in turn, will further stimulate offending. Thus crime rates under these assumptions will tend to exhibit “tipping” behavior, with both high- violation and low-violation equilibria possible given the same underlying causal situation. If, on the other hand, the punishment per crime is fixed and the total amount of punishment allowed to vary, then, if the “demand curve” for offending is normal, the total amount of punishment assigned will form an inverted “U” as a function of the punishment per crime; great When Brute Force Fails 6 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. lenity and great severity will both result in small amounts of actual punishment compared to moderation. These considerations suggest the great importance of concentration of enforcement: by offense, by offender, and by time and place, and of the direct communication of deterrent threats in order to minimize the cost of “tipping” a high-violation equilibrium into a low- violation equilibrium. Sanctions credibility is vital. “Broken windows” policing, “Cease-Fire”-style gang interventions, and the “coerced abstinence” (testing-and-sanctions) approach to controlling illicit drug use among probationers can all be seen as applications of this simple logic. Since universal zero tolerance is never possible in a world of finite enforcement resources, targeted zero tolerance, with clear communication of precisely what will not be tolerated, is essential, and will far outperform “equal-opportunity” approaches to enforcement. Relaxing the artificial assumption of perfect rationality among offenders to allow for such phenomena as hyperbolic discounting (excessive concern with the immediate over the distant future) and the risk-seeking behavior in losses associated with prospect theory provides additional insight into making crime control strategy, and helps explain the otherwise puzzling observation that swiftness and certainty are more important than severity in reducing offense rates. The interdependence of offense rates through enforcement swamping makes it even more When Brute Force Fails 7 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S.