Recidivism and Rehabilitation of Criminal Offenders: A Carrot and Stick Evolutionary Game

被引:30
作者
Berenji, Bijan [1 ]
Chou, Tom [1 ]
D'Orsogna, Maria R. [1 ,2 ]
机构
[1] Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Biomath, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA
[2] Calif State Univ Northridge, Dept Math, Los Angeles, CA USA
基金
美国国家科学基金会;
关键词
COOPERATION; PUNISHMENT; CRIME; ALLOWS;
D O I
10.1371/journal.pone.0085531
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Motivated by recent efforts by the criminal justice system to treat and rehabilitate nonviolent offenders rather than focusing solely on their punishment, we introduce an evolutionary game theoretic model to study the effects of "carrot and stick" intervention programs on criminal recidivism. We use stochastic simulations to study the evolution of a population where individuals may commit crimes depending on their past history, surrounding environment and, in the case of recidivists, on any counseling, educational or training programs available to them after being punished for their previous crimes. These sociological factors are embodied by effective parameters that determine the decision making probabilities. Players may decide to permanently reform or continue engaging in criminal activity, eventually reaching a state where they are considered incorrigible. Depending on parameter choices, the outcome of the game is a society with a majority of virtuous, rehabilitated citizens or incorrigibles. Since total resources may be limited, we constrain the combined punishment and rehabilitation costs per crime to be fixed, so that increasing one effort will necessarily decrease the other. We find that the most successful strategy in reducing crime is to optimally allocate resources so that after being punished, criminals experience impactful intervention programs, especially during the first stages of their return to society. Excessively harsh or lenient punishments are less effective. We also develop a system of coupled ordinary differential equations with memory effects to give a qualitative description of our simulated societal dynamics. We discuss our findings and sociological implications.
引用
收藏
页数:13
相关论文
共 46 条
[1]   The carrot or the stick: Rewards, punishments, and cooperation [J].
Andreoni, J ;
Harbaugh, W ;
Vesterlund, L .
AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, 2003, 93 (03) :893-902
[2]  
[Anonymous], 1974, ESSAYS EC CRIME PUNI
[3]  
[Anonymous], CRIME JUSTICE REV RE
[4]  
[Anonymous], 2006, EVOLUTIONARY DYNAMIC, DOI DOI 10.2307/J.CTVJGHW98
[5]  
[Anonymous], PRISON J S
[6]   The joker effect: Cooperation driven by destructive agents [J].
Arenas, Alex ;
Camacho, Juan ;
Cuesta, Jose A. ;
Requejo, Ruben J. .
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY, 2011, 279 (01) :113-119
[7]  
Axelrod R., 1984, EVOLUTION COOPERATIO
[8]   Reward, Punishment, and Cooperation: A Meta-Analysis [J].
Balliet, Daniel ;
Mulder, Laetitia B. ;
Van Lange, Paul A. M. .
PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 2011, 137 (04) :594-615
[9]   PUNISHMENT ALLOWS THE EVOLUTION OF COOPERATION (OR ANYTHING ELSE) IN SIZABLE GROUPS [J].
BOYD, R ;
RICHERSON, PJ .
ETHOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY, 1992, 13 (03) :171-195
[10]  
Bushway Shawn., 2004, After Crime and Punishment: Pathways to Offender Reintegration