CSI: Economics

Abstract

In this paper I discuss the foundations of ‘investigative economics’. This discipline explores the role of economic theory in the drawing of inferences about an unknown offender from evidence left at a crime scene or from aspects of the nature of the crime, such as the attack method chosen for a terrorist attack. These inferences may include inferences about the offender’s sense of self or sense of identity, the offender’s location and the possible locations of future criminal or terrorist activity, the amount of time the offender spends engaged in illegitimate activities and likely changes in the intensity of his illegitimate activities over time. Investigative economics, like investigative psychology, complements law enforcement experience and intuition. Because economic theory is not based upon a theory of personality traits and because it defines more clearly certain aspects of the environment, especially ‘risk’, it may facilitate the drawing of inferences about offenders that are not subject to certain weaknesses that presently characterise investigative psychology and the behavioural investigative advice it helps to generate.