Transcript Comments on Lee & McCray: Economic Behavioral Theory

Comments on Economic
Behavioral Theory
Sally S. Simpson
University of Maryland
Overview
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Economic Theory in Context
A. Neoclassical Theory
B. Rational Choice Theory in Criminology
(Cornish & Clarke, Paternoster, Nagin)
C. Lee-McCrary Behavioral Theory Model
Empirical Challenges to Behavioral Theory
(L-M findings)
Theoretical Questions left to Answer
Neoclassical Theory
•
Core Assumptions
– Behavior is rational (subject to constraints).
– Actors hedonistic & self-interested, motivation to offend is universal and
ubiquitous.
– Individuals have identical preferences.
– Crime is risky behavior and risk, therefore, affects behavior.
•
Core Propositions
– Crime=determined by actual risks and benefits of behavior.
– Crime can be discouraged by raising it’s “price.”
– Cost is tied to punishment (certainty and/or severity)-- “mere
deterrence.” Some attention to labor market losses.
•
Focus
--Primarily on property crimes (fewer incorporate index offenses).
--Differences in behavior due to differences in choice sets.
Weaknesses of Theory
• Static, did not explicitly take into account the relationship
between future expectations and current decisions.
• Costs, theorized as formal punishment costs (justice
system)—stigmatic, attachment, commitment costs
ignored.
• Assumed motivated offender.
• No role for social norms—even though Bentham
theorized differences in preferences as a consequence
of education, family socialization, and other social forces.
• Scope claims are limited
Criminology and rational choice
theory.
• Crime as constrained choice (knowledge/information,
individual differences).
• Different crimes, different opportunities, risks/benefits.
Cannot assume models to be the same.
• Situations/context (structural) affect assessments which
vary by crime type (corporate crime versus burglary).
• Norms affect preferences (morality/ethics). Do the right
thing not out of self-interest (Etzioni)
• Costs broadened beyond formal justice system
(informal) and benefits beyond pecuniary gain
(thrill/excitement).
• Perceived versus objective costs.
Lee-McCray Model
• Begin with standard economic model + stochastic lifecycle framework. Thus, dynamic behavioral model.
• Actor chooses his/her pattern of participation to
maximize expected utility from t forward under
“exponential discounting.” Discounting varies: patient
offender, impatient offender, myopic offender (recognition
of I-differences).
• Predict that juveniles will be deterred from offending after
their 18th birthday because the cost of committing crime
as an adult is substantially more severe and thus
extracts a “higher price.”
• Key assumption, all determinants of criminal behavior
are evolving smoothly (i.e., only severity of sanctions
adjusts at age 18 with greater sanction severity).
• Models to test this behavioral response use longitudinal
person-level arrest data.
– Deterrence versus incapacitation effect.
– Results show that there was no significant drop in offending at
age 18 (no support for deterrence).
– Rule out some potential confounds (subgroups and crime types),
data flaws (not all of them—they are, after all, official
arrest/incarceration data).
– Support incapacitation.
Theoretical Implications of “no
effect” findings.
• Why “no effects?” Authors give three ideas.
1. Actors lack knowledge about punishments
or offenders behave irrationally.
a. Lack of knowledge is consistent with
extant theory through the constrained choice
assumption.
b. But if offenders behave irrationally, this
challenges one of the main arguments of the
theory and makes other theories of criminal
behavior more attractive.
Theoretical Implications cont.
2. Offenders are behaving rationally but they have extremely low
discount factors (i.e., do not distinguish 2 years of prison from 20)
and thus do not see the 18th birthday as a salient transition.
a. This explanation is more consistent with low self-control
theory—and thus poses a challenge to the traditional behaviorist
theory . Theoretical integration of lsc+rc has been proposed (e.g.,
Piquero and associates).
b. The explanation is consistent with economic/biological
theory of Wilson and Herrnstein who argue even with those who
have low self control and a taste for immediate gratification can be
deterred when punishment severity is somehow made salient to the
actor. Yet, L & M are not optimistic this can be done.
Theoretical Implications,
continued.
3. Offenders have hyperbolic preferences (low shortrun discount factors but more reasonable long-run
discount factors)—hence actors are myopic. Sentence
differences are so small, offenders tend to see few
differences between t and t+1 punishments.
a. Completely consistent with behavioral theory.
This explanation is preferred by Lee and McCrary.
b. One wonders, however, what other factors might
be at work in this sample of youthful offenders that
have not been incorporated into the behavioral model?
Moving criminological theory
forward: More questions
• Although Lee and McCrary theorize how an actor’s current
experience/knowledge of sanctions should be affected as a
consequence of a “justice system” transition, is it fully a dynamic
theory in the sense that it takes into account “how criminal and
legitimate opportunities expected to prevail in the future affect
current decisions about criminal activity” (Flinn, 1986).
• How does the relationship between criminal and legitimate
opportunities change over time as criminal and/or social capital
increase/decrease and why? For instance, Uggan notes that job
opportunities become salient for high rate offenders when they
reach their mid to late 20s, but not before. It doesn’t seem
reasonable that the monetarized return from legitimate work has
increased to such a point--for these usually unemployed high
frequency offenders--that it now exceeds the monetarized return
from criminal activity (thus making crime less attractive).
Moving theory forward….
• The theory seems able to incorporate Individual differences such as
knowledge, experience, IQ, and so forth but these components are
not generally captured in the simplistic expected-utility-maximization
principle versions of the theory.
• Where are the social norms and values and what role should they
(or could they) plan in the behaviorist model?
• Socialization influences (peers, gangs, violent people and places)
and psychic thrills (positive and negative)?
• Why don’t situational contingencies play a larger role (motivations)?
• Social/criminal capital as it affects preferences?
---I see the economics in rational choice theory, but where is the
criminology in these behavioral theories?