Tuesday, March 06, 2012

[vjzbajlf] Surveillance and penalties for crimes

The penalties for crimes are set higher than the social cost because not all of them will be caught.  The higher cost is intended to disincentivize the criminal who computes the expected penalty, the penalty multiplied by the probability of getting caught.  That expected penalty ought to be the social cost.

If there is a change, perhaps technology or laws giving the government (or plaintiff in a civil crime) more power, that causes a crime to be more easily caught, then the penalty must be correspondingly lowered in order for it to remain just.

Red light and speeding cameras, digital copyright infringement are the obvious examples.  If a red light camera is paying for itself, or making a profit, you are absolutely doing it wrong.

Less obvious are the subpoena power that a prosecutor, or even domestic surveillance without a subpoena, has to find out about your life: gmail, search history, computers, facebook... Laws safeguarding the privacy of your data would be nice, but we don't have them, yet.

In the meantime, the ease for which the crime was prosecuted must play a role in sentencing (or damages).

The criminal might be indifferent on how much effort he or she takes to to conceal evidence of the crime.  The higher probability of getting caught leads to a lower penalty which multiplies out to the same.

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