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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:34 am
Time: 11:34 am
Results for criminal sanctions
4 results foundAuthor: Chmura, Thorsten Title: Selfishness As a Potential Cause of Crime. A Prison Experiment Summary: For a rational choice theorist, the absence of crime is more difficult to explain than its presence. Arguably, the expected value of criminal sanctions, i.e. the product of severity times certainty, is often below the expected benefit. We rely on a standard theory from behavioral economics, inequity aversion, to offer an explanation. This theory could also explain how imperfect criminal sanctions deter crime. The critical component of the theory is aversion against outperforming others. To test this theory, we exploit that it posits inequity aversion to be a personality trait. We can therefore test it in a very simple standard game. Inequity averse individuals give a fraction of their endowment to another anonymous, unendowed participant. We have prisoners play this game, and compare results to findings from a meta-study of more than 100 dictator games with non-prisoners. Surprisingly, results do not differ, not even if we only compare with other dictator games among close-knit groups. To exclude social proximity as an explanation, we retest prisoners on a second dictator game where the recipient is a charity. Prisoners give more, not less. Details: Bonn, Germany: Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, 2013. 33p. Source: Internet Resource: Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods Bonn 2013/5: Accessed April 6, 2013 at: http://www.coll.mpg.de/pdf_dat/2013_05online.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Germany URL: http://www.coll.mpg.de/pdf_dat/2013_05online.pdf Shelf Number: 128314 Keywords: Criminal SanctionsMoral BeliefsPunishmentRational Choice TheorySelfishnessSentencingSeverity of Punishment |
Author: Button, Mark Title: Fraud and Punishment: Enhancing Deterrence Through More Effective Sanctions. Main Report Summary: This research was commissioned by the Midlands Fraud Forum, Eversheds and PKF with the aim to ‘assess how sanctions are used against fraudsters and how this can be made easier so as to maximise deterrence.’ Fraud is becoming much more transparent in society as a problem that causes significant harm. The recent National Fraud Authority’s Annual Fraud Indicator estimate of a £73 billion1 problem establishes it as, in all probability, the most expensive crime to UK Plc. There is also evidence that some criminals are moving from traditional acquisitive crime to fraud. Clearly more needs to be done to reduce fraud, and sanctions form an important element of that strategy. There has been interest in sanctions for fraud and related areas in recent years in Government backed reviews and strategies2. However, academic research in this area has been sparse and tended to focus upon specific types of fraud3. This research addresses some of that gap by delving deeper into the sanctions used to counter fraud. The aim was to look for inspiration from a range of other sectors, with a view to making recommendations for the more effective use of sanctions against fraudsters, building upon some of the other work undertaken in this area. The report is based upon documentary research, 39 interviews drawn from organisations across the criminal and civil justice systems, public and private sectors. Additionally a survey was also conducted for this research which secured 397 responses. This is the summary report and full findings can be found in the main report (“the Report”) and survey report documents. Details: Portsmouth, UK: Centre for Counter Fraud Studies, University of Portsmouth, 2012. 127p. Source: Internet Resource: http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/icjs/centreforcounterfraudstudies/documents/filetodownload,161060,en.tmp Year: 2012 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/icjs/centreforcounterfraudstudies/documents/filetodownload,161060,en.tmp Shelf Number: 128913 Keywords: Business CrimesCorporate Fraud (U.K.)Criminal SanctionsFinancial CrimesWhite-Collar Crime |
Author: Anderson, James M. Title: The Changing Role of Criminal Law in Controlling Corporate Behavior Summary: What should be the role of the criminal law in controlling corporate behavior, and how can the execution of that role be improved? On the one hand, corporations have enormous power, and, when a corporation causes harm, there is a natural instinct to apply criminal sanctions, society's most serious expression of moral disapproval. In the wake of a harm in which a corporation had a prominent role, there are often calls for an increased use of the criminal law to tame corporate excesses. On the other hand, criminal liability has historically usually required criminal intent, a concept that applies oddly to a legal construction, such as a corporation. And more recently, critics have decried what they have termed the overcriminalization of corporate behavior, suggesting that there has been an overreliance on the use of criminal law in this context. To provide guidance to policymakers on the proper role of criminal sanctions in this context, RAND Corporation researchers (1) measure the current use of criminal sanctions in controlling corporate behavior, (2) describe how the current regime developed, and (3) offer suggestions about how the use of criminal sanctions to control corporate behavior might be improved. Key Findings There Is Mixed Evidence About the Changing Role of Criminal Law in Regulating and Controlling Corporate Activity - With the exceptions of the application of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the number of criminal prosecutions of corporations has declined in recent years, suggesting less formal prosecutorial activity rather than more. However, use of deferred-prosecution agreements (DPAs), non-prosecution agreements (NPAs), and debarment activity has increased sharply, suggesting that the threat of criminal action is still playing an important role in controlling behavior in this context. Recommendations - Recognize that criminal sanctions in this context are instrumental tools and not moral judgments. Lawmakers should be reluctant to pass statutes that punish without proof of criminal intent, courts should be reluctant to interpret statutes in ways that ignore criminal intent, and prosecutors should bring such prosecutions sparingly. - Have judges review deferred-prosecution and non-prosecution agreements. This practice would provide some assurance that the agreements are genuinely in the public interest and might allow third parties affected by the agreements to air their objections in a neutral forum. Policymakers should give serious consideration to requiring that every DPA and NPA be reviewed by an appropriate federal judge. This practice would provide additional transparency and reassure the public that justice was being served. - Carefully review debarment provisions. Debarment decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis by the relevant governmental agency, depending on the severity of the allegations made and their relevance to the domain of the governmental entity. - Consider substituting the use of civil sanctions. In many cases, civil sanctions that include formal fact-finding might function as well as or better than criminal sanctions. Details: Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2014. 146p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 9, 2015 at: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR412.html Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR412.html Shelf Number: 134766 Keywords: Civil SanctionsCorporate Crime (U.S.)Criminal Law Criminal SanctionsProsecutionSarbanes-Oxley ActWhite Collar Crime |
Author: Jaqua, Daniel Title: How to Catch Capone: The Optimal Punishment of Interrelated Crimes Summary: This paper characterizes optimal criminal punishments when there are multiple interrelated crimes. Optimal punishments are functions of the extent to which related crimes are complements or substitutes weighted by their relative harms to society. The available empirical evidence on the relationship between index crimes in the United States suggests that tailoring criminal punishments properly to incorporate relationships between crimes could reduce the aggregate harm to victims by 3%, or about $8 billion dollars annually, holding enforcement expenditures fixed. The actual harm reduction of a marginal increase in arrests for an index crime is on average about 1.5-3 times greater than the harm reduction calculated without these effects. Details: Working paper, 2016. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 12, 2016 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2831590 Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2831590 Shelf Number: 145431 Keywords: Criminal SanctionsDeterrencePunishment |