Model Of Criminal Behavior Research Articles

A multiscale stochastic criminal behavior model and the convergence to a piecewise-deterministic-Markov-process limit

Ever since the pioneering human–environment interaction model of criminal behavior [M. B. Short, M. R. DOrsogna, V. B. Pasour, G. E. Tita, P. J. Brantingham, A. L. Bertozzi and L. B. Chayes, A statistical model of criminal behavior, Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. 18 (2008) 1249–1267] was published, many mathematical agent-based residential burglary models have been proposed. In order to reach an improved balance among model accuracy, analysis simplicity and real-world data fitting tractability, we introduce in this paper a multi-scale hybrid interacting-particle-system model of criminal behavior in a discrete setting. We assume that agents’ actions are governed by independent Poisson clocks, while the environment variable evolves on a separate finer discrete spatial-temporal scale. Furthermore, as we refine the second scale to its scaling limit, the hybrid system converges to a piecewise deterministic Markov process (PDMP). Through a martingale approach and infinitesimal generator analysis, we provide a formal derivation for the convergence. Computer simulations of coupled hybrid and PDMP systems both exhibit spatio-temporal aggregates of crime and show excellent agreement between the two, which supports our theoretical derivation of the scaling limit. The methodology and results we develop here indicate a way to establish connections for the proposed crime models.

IMPROVEMENT OF THE CRIMINAL LAW FOR PROFESSIONAL CRIMES OF MEDICAL WORKERS

The scientific novelty of the article is due to the results of a comprehensive criminal law study of medical crimes as models of criminal behavior in order to fairly qualify them and improve the norms providing for responsibility for them. The theoretical basis of the study was the opinions of practitioners, the scientific position of A.E. Senokosova and the expert conclusions of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation on improving criminal legislation providing for liability for medical errors.
 The authors draw attention to the competition of articles 109, 118, 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and suggest that when using them as a result of qualification, the signs of a special subject of crime – a medical worker should be taken into account. The study actualizes the issues of the effectiveness of punishment applied for criminal iatrogenies. The emphasis is made on the need to apply deprivation of the right to engage in professional activity as an additional punishment to medical workers when they commit iatrogenic crimes.

Salience and the severity versus the certainty of punishment

A common presumption, supported by some empirical evidence, is that the certainty of punishment is a more effective deterrent than the severity of punishment. In rational decision making models of crime, this presumption implies that offenders must be risk-seeking. Some scholars claim that this and other anomalous implications are caused by the exclusion of various behavioral considerations in theoretical analyses. This article investigates whether a model in which criminals over-weigh probabilities attached to more salient payoffs (as the term is used by Bordalo, Gennaioli, and Shleifer in a series of influential articles) performs better than simple expected utility theory in explaining criminal behavior that is more responsive to the certainty than the severity of punishment. The analysis reveals that the answer is negative unless the probability of punishment is unreasonably high. This finding suggests that we should exercise caution in incorporating salience – a la Bordalo et al. – in models of criminal behavior.

Deterring Corruption: Beyond Rational Choice Theory

Corruption, while reflecting (and often reinforcing) broad, even systemic, institutional deficiencies within societies, also represents the amalgam of the choices, priorities, and actions of individual actors. This Article explores how cognitive and social conditions impact individuals’ decisions to engage in corruption, considering how anticorruption initiatives can, do, and should alter incentives to deter actors from engaging in such behaviors. It argues for context-specific approaches to fight corruption, emphasizing that the impacts of reform programs will hinge decisively on the nature, character, and status of both corruption and the targeted potential corrupt actors within a given environment. Expanding on the rational choice model of criminal behavior, this Article first considers how individuals evaluate expected costs and benefits when contemplating corrupt acts, examining how heuristics and biases may produce predictable errors in perception, evaluation, and judgment that impact their ultimate decisions and behaviors. Recognizing the role of social factors in shaping individuals’ perceptions of both the magnitude and probability of related costs and benefits, it then analyzes the incidence of corruption as a frequency-dependent equilibrium. Specifically, it presents a dynamic, path-dependent model of corruption in which the decision of an individual to engage in corrupt activities is driven not only by her own personal experiences, values, and expectations, but also by her perceptions concerning the beliefs and behaviors of other members of her community. The Article concludes by considering how such insights into individual decision-making can and should inform legal and non-legal initiatives to combat various forms of corruption in diverse environments.

Personality, age, and antisocial peers: Relationships with violent and non-violent crimes

Among the different risk factors (RF) associated with criminal behavior outstand those related to offender’s personality traits and to lack of social support. These two groups of RF have been considered among the ”Major Risk/Need Factors” on the Andrews and Bonta’s model of criminal behavior (2010). The aim of this study is to test the relevance of these RF in the relationship between the age and the type of crime committed. We analyzed data collected with the RisCanvi, a protocol for the assessment and management of violent risk behavior for inmates (Andres-Pueyo et al., 2010) in a sample of 3952 inmates. Personality traits and social support are closely related across all ages and crime type. If we distinguish offenders by age, the younger ones show a higher prevalence of several social influence risk factors and also in other personality traits. Some other RF are less influenced by age.

Deciding to Act Corruptly

In the same way that the market supply and demand for a given good or service depend on individual supply and demand curves, corruption, while reflecting – and often reinforcing – broad, even systemic, institutional deficiencies within societies, also represents the amalgamation of the choices, priorities, and actions of individual actors. This paper argues that, in order to identify the social, economic, and political factors that contribute to the forms, magnitude, and character of corruption in a given context, it is critical to consider why and how individuals in that environment choose to act corruptly. It examines the complex, dynamic nature and causes of various forms of corruption by focusing on the conditions and incentives that either encourage or deter individuals from engaging in such illicit behaviors. Expanding on the rational choice model of criminal behavior, this paper considers how individuals assess expected costs and benefits when contemplating corrupt acts, including how heuristics and biases may produce predictable errors in perception, evaluation, and judgment that impact their ultimate decisions and behaviors. Recognizing the role of social factors in shaping individuals’ perceptions of both the magnitude and probability of related costs and benefits, it also analyzes the incidence of corruption as a frequency-dependent equilibrium. Specifically, it presents a dynamic, path-dependent model of corruption in which the decision of an individual to engage in such illicit behaviors is driven not only by her own personal experiences, values, and expectations, but also by her perceptions concerning the beliefs and behaviors of other members of her community. Interwoven throughout the paper are analyses of how such insights into individual decision-making can and should inform legal and non-legal initiatives to combat various forms of corruption.

Human Capital Formation and Criminal Behavior: The Role of Early Childhood Education

Abstract This paper develops an overlapping generations model of criminal behavior, which extends prior research on crime by taking into account parental decisions about their children's education and about sending them to school when they become adolescents. Additionally, it is also assumed that acquired ability in childhood and school resources interplay to determine the student's probability of leaving school before graduation. Therefore, considering that dropping out of school and criminality are endogenously determined by the quality of early childhood education, school inputs and law enforcement parameters, this paper offers a framework to study the effects of interventions in early education on criminality and human capital accumulation vis-à-vis enhancing school resources and public spending on enforcement. Numerical simulations show that stimuli to increase investments in the education of children from disadvantaged families are much more cost-effective as a crime-prevention policy than expenditures on school resources and police protection.

Rethinking the Economic Model of Deterrence: How Insights from Empirical Social Science Could Affect Policies Towards Crime and Punishment

Game-theoretic models incorporating neo-classical economic assumptions can be a powerful tool for identifying and analyzing issues relevant to legal policy. In this paper I argue that, where those assumptions are deficient, the efficacy of and insights from such models can be improved by incorporating insights from experimental social sciences. Following this paradigm, I propose an expansion of the neo-classical deterrence model of criminal behavior to incorporate, as reputation effects, social scientific theory regarding the effects of in-group norms on behavior. Analysis of the expanded model shows that there are material differences between the classic and expanded models in predictions, the latter of which are more consistent with macro-level observations. I then discuss some substantive implications of the predictions of the expanded model for criminal legal policy.

Network models of criminal behavior

Criminal psychology is beginning to focus on modeling the effect of mental processes and environmental stimuli on offender behavior by Strano (2004). This article presents a knowledge-based-system approach to deriving empirical models of this behavior. The inputs to the system are the psychological characteristics and environmental variables that reflect the mental state of the offender and the circumstances of the crime, while criminal actions are viewed as the outputs. Although criminologists and psychologists can identify relevant input and output variables, the processes underlying criminal behavior are only partly understood and thus cannot be modeled from first principles.

Economic effects of corruption in judiciary

The aim of the paper was to explore economic effects of corruption in judiciary. The examination included the analysis of economic features of judiciary and economic mechanisms of corruption in judiciary within the theoretical framework of Backer's model of criminal behavior. The analysis demonstrates that corruption in judiciary violates the rule of law, hence undermines the fundaments of market economy and specialization, i.e. social division of labor as the ground for improving economic efficiency. As to the static economic efficiency, the most important effect of corruption in judiciary is transaction costs that are generated and the consequent allocative inefficiency. As to the dynamic economic efficiency, corruption decreases economic growth rates and reallocates recourses from productive to distributive activities. The effects of corruption in judiciary to economic inequality are not significant, particularly not comparing with the already identified effects to the economic efficiency.

Estimating a Dynamic Discrete Choice Model of Crime

A simple dynamic model of criminal behavior is estimated. The object is to see if the dynamics involved help differentiate between alternative structural hypotheses involving empirical regularities such as the age crime profile. This refers to the observation that criminal behavior seems to peak around age seventeen.

A simple model of crime waves, riots, and revolutions

Standard economic models of criminal behavior analyze the criminal's decision in a partial equilibrium context. The standard model does not recognize that the probability of being punished is a function of the total amount of crime that occurs. As the total amount of crime increases, police resources become strained, courts become congested, and prisons become overcrowded. As a result, proportionately fewer criminals are apprehended, convicted, and imprisoned. The feedback effects from one criminal's decision to participate in crime to another criminal's decision can be highly significant. In one parameterization of the model developed here, the individual commits twice as many crimes for a given parameter shift than is implied by the standard model. The model also sheds light on other areas where criminal actions are interdependent such as riots, crime waves, and revolutions.

Criminal homicide and the elderly offender: A theoretical and empirical analysis

This paper theoretically develops and empirically tests factors that significantly affect criminal homicide arrest rate patterns in the United States for elderly criminals of the ages 65 years and older, from 1964 to 1985. The analysis reveais that changes in commonly selected economic, demographic, law enforcement, and punishment variables are significantly correlated with elderly criminal homicide arrest rates in a manner consistent with implications from general theoretical models of criminal behavior and with frameworks specifically dealing with criminal homicide.

Crime and punishment again: The economic approach with a psychological twist

Akerlof and Dickens (1982) suggested that in a model of criminal behavior which considered the effects of cognitive dissonance, increasing the severity of punishment could increase the crime rate. This paper demonstrates that that conjecture was correct. With cognitive dissonance, people may have to rationalize not committing crimes under normal circumstances if punishment is not severe. The rationalization may lead them to underestimate the expected utility of committing crimes when opportunities present themselves. If punishment is severe, then rationalization may not be necessary and people may be more likely to commit crimes when opportunities arise.

Empirical Models of Criminal Behavior: How Significant a Factor is Race?

Empirical models of the supply of criminal offenses in the United States have shown a positive relationship between the proportion of the population that is non-white (RACE) and crime rates. Though non-whites in the United States possess more “criminal capital” than the average person, such studies do not take into consideration this excess criminal capital. Since RACE and the omitted excess criminal capital are correlated, it will pick up the influence of the excess criminal capital. Using cross-sectional data from Florida's municipalities, we show that after adjusting for excess criminal capital, RACE has no significant relationship with crime.

Critical Elements of Criminal Behavior Explanation

Many theorists have suggested what might be considered elements necessary to committing a criminal act, but no one has attempted to formulate and test a model of criminal behavior which includes the elements appearing most often in the literature: motivation, freedom from social constraints, skill, and opportunity. This paper presents a review of conceptual problems in using two of these elements, followed by a multiplicative model of criminal behavior containing all four elements. The model is then utilizen date pertaining to the pertaining to the purchase of stolen merchandise. All four elements are implicated in this activity.

Economic Models of Criminal Behavior

Economic Models of Criminal Behavior

New estimates of the determinants of urban crime

New tests of the utility maximizing model of criminal behavior, first proposed by Becker, are performed. These tests use newer data than has previously been available. The data are for 1960 and 1970 and for sixty cities. Ordinary least squares and two stage least squares methods are used.