TY  - BOOK
AU  - Shavell,Steven
ED  - National Bureau of Economic Research.
TI  - A Simple Model of Optimal Deterrence and Incapacitation
T2  - NBER working paper series
PY  - 2014///
CY  - Cambridge, Mass.
PB  - National Bureau of Economic Research
N1  - December 2014; Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
N2  - The deterrence of crime and its reduction through incapacitation are studied in a simple multiperiod model of crime and law enforcement.  Optimal imprisonment sanctions and the optimal probability of sanctions are determined.  A point of emphasis is that the incapacitation  of individuals is often socially desirable even when they are potentially deterrable.  The reason is that successful deterrence may require a relatively high probability of sanctions and thus a relatively high enforcement expense.  In contrast, incapacitation may yield benefits no matter how low the probability of sanctions is--implying that incapacitation may be superior to deterrence
UR  - https://www.nber.org/papers/w20747
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w20747
ER  -