Eur. Phys. J. B 68, 133-144 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2009-00066-x

Crime and punishment: the economic burden of impunity

¹ Laboratoire TIMC-IMAG (UMR 5525), University of Grenoble I, Domaine de La Merci, Jean Roget, 38706 La Tronche, France
² Instituto de Física and Faculdade de Ciências Económicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970 Porto Alegre, Brazil
³ Laboratoire de Physique Statistique (UMR8550), École Normale Supérieure, 24, rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05 and Centre d'Analyse et de Mathématique Sociales (CAMS) (UMR8557) École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 54, Bd. Raspail, 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France

Corresponding author: ^a roberto.iglesias@ufrgs.br

Received: 11 October 2007
Revised: 19 December 2008
Published online: 28 February 2009

Abstract

Crime is an economically relevant activity. It may represent a mechanism of wealth distribution but also a social and economic burden because of the interference with regular legal activities and the cost of the law enforcement system. Sometimes it may be less costly for the society to allow for some level of criminality. However, a drawback of such a policy is that it may lead to a high increase of criminal activity, that may become hard to reduce later on. Here we investigate the level of law enforcement required to keep crime within acceptable limits. A sharp phase transition is observed as a function of the probability of punishment. We also analyze other consequences of criminality as the growth of the economy, the inequality in the wealth distribution (the Gini coefficient) and other relevant quantities under different scenarios of criminal activity and probabilities of apprehension.