Learning by Offending: How Do Criminals Learn about Criminal Law?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Philippe, Arnaud
• 署名单位: University of Bristol
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20210378
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 27-60
• 关键词: deterrence; prison; PUNISHMENT; incarceration; perceptions; crime

摘要

This paper investigates how criminals learn about criminal laws. It uses a natural experiment in which sentences were drastically increased for a specific type of recidivism in France. In the short run, advertising the reform did not trigger any change in criminal behavior. However, people who had firsthand experience of the reform learned about it and later committed significantly fewer targeted crimes, but the same number of nontargeted crimes. Learning appears to be limited to individuals with direct experience of the law. While codefendants also learned, other criminal peers and defendants attending the same trial for another case did not. ( JEL D83, K14, K42) )