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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Punishment as Defiance: Deterrence and Perverse Effects in the Case of Expressive Crime

subject

description

Expressive crime contrasts with instrumental crime in that delinquents do not seek material benefits. Law-breakers are motivated by the desire to “make a statement”, possibly against majority attitudes in the society. Fighting expressive crime is complicated by this fact in that increasing intervention may have counter-effects. In this paper, I present a model of expressive crime. Delinquents are motivated to perform the illegal action because it transmits a signal. If the punishment associated with the crime affects the value of this signal positively, an increase in punishment may serve as defiance, and not as deterrence. Accordingly, the number of law violations may increase if those defied outnumber the deterred. Throughout the analysis, I refer to y hleroch@politik.uni-mainz.dei I thankfully acknowledge CESifo’s financial sponsorship for participation at the Conference on Law and Economics 2011 and the helpful comments from its participants. I especially thank Carlos Bethencourt for his critical remarks and constructive suggestions on an earlier version of this paper, as well as the police departments of Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart for their valuable support.