Yeah, sorry, to elaborate a bit: I’m not saying that criminals are calculating the expected value calculation (i.e., that they can be modeled per rational choice theory). I’m instead saying that life strategies and habits will be reinforced and spread through e.g., social mimesis if they have a high positive expected reward. So for instance, if crime isn’t prosecuted, I think it will increase, at the speed of a few generations.
I’m not sure how much I trust the literature. In particular, I see it as estimating short level effects (e.g., looking at differences in natural experiments at the level of years, rather than decades). And I can buy that these short level effects can be small. But I don’t see it as being as informative about longer-run effects.
I think that proportionate-in-expectation punishment might work at the level of making more criminal life strategies less valuable, but I agree that certain punishment might be more effective. I don’t think that my position really hinges on this.
I read that post before but I’m not convinced. Reasons against:
anticorrelation between smarts and criminality
selection effects on crime is very weak at current margins, other than incapacitation
consensus-ish in the field that certain punishments is more effective for deterrence than proportionate-in-expectation punishments
Yeah, sorry, to elaborate a bit: I’m not saying that criminals are calculating the expected value calculation (i.e., that they can be modeled per rational choice theory). I’m instead saying that life strategies and habits will be reinforced and spread through e.g., social mimesis if they have a high positive expected reward. So for instance, if crime isn’t prosecuted, I think it will increase, at the speed of a few generations.
I’m not sure how much I trust the literature. In particular, I see it as estimating short level effects (e.g., looking at differences in natural experiments at the level of years, rather than decades). And I can buy that these short level effects can be small. But I don’t see it as being as informative about longer-run effects.
I think that proportionate-in-expectation punishment might work at the level of making more criminal life strategies less valuable, but I agree that certain punishment might be more effective. I don’t think that my position really hinges on this.