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When Should Governments Reveal Criminal Histories?

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  • Simundza Daniel

    (Department of Finance and Business Economics, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA)

Abstract

This paper studies how government policies regarding when to publicly reveal criminal histories affect criminal behavior and labor productivity. I focus attention on two policies: a strict policy that publicly reveals citizens’ past criminal acts after the first conviction, and a lenient policy that discloses this information only after the second conviction. My main results provide conditions such that leniency benefits society by minimizing the crime rate and maximizing productivity of the criminal population. The lenient policy can minimize the crime rate when public notification has a relatively small positive effect on detection probabilities and agents have long expected criminal lifetimes. Moreover, I show that when either notification policy minimizes the crime rate it also maximizes labor productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Simundza Daniel, 2016. "When Should Governments Reveal Criminal Histories?," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 311-331, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rlecon:v:12:y:2016:i:2:p:311-331:n:2
    DOI: 10.1515/rle-2014-0052
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    References listed on IDEAS

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