Llad Phillips

Crime Control in California

Our model permits us to investigate the possible deterrent effects of the likelihood of conviction and the severity of sentence on the commission of felony crime, and also to evaluate the impact of increased law enforcement manpower on the conviction rate. We find that the likelihood of conviction and the severity of sentence significantly deter crime, a result consistent with our time series studies as well as a cross-section study by Phillips using state data, a cross-section study by Sjoquist using city data and a cross-section study by Ehrlich using state data.1 In contrast to the last

Police Effectiveness and the Production Function for Law Enforcement

INTRODUCTION. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a theoretical framework for the analysis of production relationships in the law enforcement service industry. We (1) provide the theoretical rationale for utilizing a production-function approach to relate the output of a law enforcement agency, in its treatment of major felonies, to the level of offenses for those felonies, and to the primary inputs (resources) utilized in law enforcement,1 and (2) attempt to measure the effectiveness of police activity-a problem neglected by economists to date.2 The appropriate technique for a crime-by-crime analysis is not immediately obvious. There is an accepted measure of output (the number of offenses cleared by arrest for each crime) but an almost complete lack of cost accounting data relating the inputs into law enforcement to individual categories of crime. That limitation can be overcome by using optimality conditions to derive the fraction of each input allocated to each crime.3 If law enforcement

FORECASTING HIGHWAY CASUALTIES: THE BRITISH ROAD SAFETY ACT AND A SENSE OF DEJA VU

This paper reexamines the effect of the introduction of the British Road Safety Act of 1967. We construct a dynamic model relating monthly road casualties to road traffic, rainfall, and alcohol consumption, standardizing for the seasonality in the data. An intervention variable captures the effect of the Road Safety Act. The findings confirm Rosss earlier conclusion that the Road Safety Act significantly reduces casualties. However, we find that the Road Safety Act only accounts for 2.7 percent of the variance in road casualties, while miles-driven and rainfall account for 48.8 percent, and alcohol consumption explains 4.2 percent. Our model forecasts accurately for 24 months beyond December, 1972, the last month used for estimation.

Stabilization of the Canadian Dollar: 1975-1986

The authors extend their earlier work on Canadian intervention in the foreign-exchange market in three ways: (1) use daily data from 1975 to 1986 to see if results for the 1950s hold during the current float; (2) extend their original model to include both stock and flow versions of the foreign-exchange market; and (3) compare estimates using published Canadian holdings of U.S. dollars to estimates using actual intervention, which is confidential. Canadian authorities continue to lean against the wind, but their lagged response is longer and more variable. Published data effectively reflect intervention.

Minimizing the social cost of drug abuse: An economic analysis of alternatives for policy

The use of heroin, with its concomitant social problems, is facilitated by an illicit market process which functions similarly to economic markets in general. The analysis of this process, incorporated in a model embodying the interacting relationships of crime generation and control, permits evaluation of three fundamentally different strategies for social control. These are controlling supply through law enforcement and other strategies, controlling demand by detaining addicts, or reducing illicit market activitity by introducing an effective substitute for the services of that market. When all the social costs of addiction are taken into account and when minimizing the total of those costs is taken to be the objective, the authors conclude that the “best” solution will lie with the establishment of a drug maintenance program. Properly administered, such a program would undermine the illicit market by reducing demand. Furthermore, it can be expected to reduce levels of drug related crimes and to moderate factors encouraging addiction.

Social goals and appropriate policy for corrections: An economic appraisal

This paper presents a logical approach to the problem of devising socially acceptable policy for the operation of a corrections system. As an alternative to considering separately the frequently mentioned, but conflicting goals of providing rehabilitation, retribution, detention of dangerous criminals, and general and specific deterrence of criminal behavior, the authors suggest that the goal be couched in terms of minimizing the social cost of crime. By developing a model which illustrates how the corrections process relates to the various facets of the criminal justice system, and by isolating the functional relationships which must be taken into account, the authors are able to show there is an optimal level of rehabilitation, detention, and deterrence associated with a socially optimal level of criminal activity and criminal justice control activity. Although much remains to be learned before such a model can be effectively implemented, considerable research has already pointed the way for learning how to more effectively balance the alternatives for policy. An enumeration of the policy implications of the model identifies targets for further research.

The influence of police interventions and alternative income sources on the dynamic process of choosing crime as a career

This paper demonstrates how a rational process of choice may be influenced by both deterrence forces and economic opportunities. This choice is modeled by a dynamic (Markov) process which captures self-sorting by youth among the categories of innocents, desisters, and persisters. in crime. A key to the results is the introduction of the perceived probability of punishment and its influence on the sorting process. The analysis shows how this force and the availability, or lack of, economic opportunities or income sources modify transition probabilities. The long-run consequences will be a larger subpopulation of individuals who have experimented with crime but subsequently revert to crime-free behavior and a smaller subpopulation of individuals who commit a greater share of crime. Empirical evidence is based on data from the New Youth Cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys.

The Criminal Justice System: Its Technology and Inefficiencies

THIS essay is concerned with two policy issues: (1) optimal distribution of resources among branches of the criminal justice system such as police, courts (plus prosecution), and corrections; and (2) optimal allocation of resources to the system. This analysis pursues Stiglers approach of formulating a model of rational agency behavior based on the objective criterion of minimizing the sum of damages plus control costs.1 Damages are determined by both the severity and the supply of offenses.2 Costs of control are specified in terms of the joint outputs of the branches of the system and the prices of inputs to police, corrections, and the other system branches.

The Term Structure of Interest Rates in the MIT-PENN-SSRC Model: Reality or Illusion?

THE IS-LM MODEL of income and expenditure, which is the conceptual foundation for large econometric models, contains only a single interest rate. Under standard interpretations of the model, however, investment expenditures depend on long-term rates of interest and the demand for money responds to short-term yields . Textbooks avoid the issue by adopting the fiction of a single rate of interest. Outside the classroom the question of the term structure of interestrates and ie link between monetary and expenditure sectors reappears. The problem is resolved in most large econometric models by an equation that expresses long-term interest rates as depending primarily on a long distibuted lag of current and past short-term yields .1 The justification for this approach rests primarily on work by Modigliani and Sutch [24, 25] and Modigliani and Shiller [23]. The Modigliani-Shiller model of the term structure is the primary channel irough which monetary policy in the MIT-PENN-SSRC model alters prices, income, and employment.2 There is, however, a large and growing body of empirical evidence indicating iat

The response of fertility to the expectation of death: Implications for the demographic transition

An explanation of the early expanding stage of demographic transition is outlined and supporting evidence from Sweden, Norway, and England and Wales is provided. The model assumes that parents attempt to produce extra children to compensate for expected child mortality, but the declines in the level and variability of death in the early expanding stage do not lead to reductions in births until the typical family has achieved its ideal size. Following the early expanding stage, a direct correlation is predicted. Cochrane-Orcutt estimates of the coefficients of a regression of births on a distributed lag of deaths using annual crude birth and death rates for Sweden at 4 periods of its history show positive distributed lag of births on deaths significant from approximately 2 to 8 years for the stages of the demographic transition after the early expanding stage. Results from Norway and England and Wales are similar. Further research is necessary before the model is accepted.