Corrupt police

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Abbink, Klaus; Ryvkin, Dmitry; Serra, Danila
• 署名单位: Monash University; State University System of Florida; Florida State University; Texas A&M University System; Texas A&M University College Station
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2020.07.001
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 101-119
• 关键词: corruption; BRIBERY; crime; police; experiment

摘要

We employ laboratory experiments to examine the effects of corrupt law enforcement on crime. We embed corruption in a social dilemma where citizens choose whether to obey the law or to break the law and impose a negative externality on others. Police officers observe citizens' behavior and can impose fines on law-breakers or extort bribes from any citizen. We find that the presence of police, even if they are corrupt, substantially reduces crime as compared to a baseline setting without police. Corrupt police officers use bribes in a targeted manner as a substitute for fines to punish law-breakers. We also test the effectiveness of two reward mechanisms aimed at reducing police corruption, both of which are based on society-wide police performance measures and not on the monitoring of individual officers. Both mechanisms make bribery more precisely targeted toward lawbreakers, and one of them leads to a moderate reduction in crime. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.