Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law and Psychology

Maurer School of Law: Indiana University

Criminals

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Identifying Criminals’ Risk Preferences, Murat C. Mungan, Jonathan Klick Apr 2016

Identifying Criminals’ Risk Preferences, Murat C. Mungan, Jonathan Klick

Indiana Law Journal

There is a 250-year-old presumption in the criminology and law enforcement literature that people are deterred more by increases in the certainty rather than increases in the severity of legal sanctions. We call this presumption the Certainty Aversion Presumption (CAP). Simple criminal decision-making models suggest that criminals must be risk seeking if they behave consistently with CAP. This implication leads to disturbing interpretations, such as criminals being categorically different from law-abiding people, who often display risk-averse behavior while making financial decisions. Moreover, policy discussions that incorrectly rely on criminals’ risk attitudes implied by CAP are ill informed, and may therefore …


Book Review. Alexander, F. And Staub, H., The Criminal, The Judge And The Public, Jerome Hall Jan 1932

Book Review. Alexander, F. And Staub, H., The Criminal, The Judge And The Public, Jerome Hall

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.