IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/23697.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Crime and Violence: Desensitization in Victims to Watching Criminal Events

Author

Listed:
  • Rafael Di Tella
  • Lucia Freira
  • Ramiro H. Gálvez
  • Ernesto Schargrodsky
  • Diego Shalom
  • Mariano Sigman

Abstract

We study desensitization to crime in a lab experiment by showing footage of criminal acts to a group of subjects, some of whom have been previously victimized. We measure biological markers of stress and behavioral indices of cognitive control before and after treated participants watch a series of real, crime-related videos (while the control group watches non-crime-related videos). Not previously victimized participants exposed to the treatment video show significant changes in cortisol level, heart rate, and measures of cognitive control. Instead, previously victimized individuals who are exposed to the treatment video show biological markers and cognitive performance comparable to those measured in individuals exposed to the control video. These results suggest a phenomenon of desensitization or habituation of victims to crime exposure.

Suggested Citation

  • Rafael Di Tella & Lucia Freira & Ramiro H. Gálvez & Ernesto Schargrodsky & Diego Shalom & Mariano Sigman, 2017. "Crime and Violence: Desensitization in Victims to Watching Criminal Events," NBER Working Papers 23697, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23697
    Note: LE POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23697.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Amodio, Francesco, 2019. "Crime protection investment spillovers: Theory and evidence from the City of Buenos Aires," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 626-649.
    3. Rafael Di Tella & Sebastian Galiani & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2010. "Crime Distribution and Victim Behavior during a Crime Wave," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons For and From Latin America, pages 175-204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Rafael di Tella & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2009. "Happiness, Ideology and Crime in Argentine Cities," Research Department Publications 4645, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    5. Rafael Di Tella & Sebastian Edwards & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2010. "The Economics of Crime: Lessons For and From Latin America," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number dite09-1, June.
    6. Di Tella, Rafael & Edwards, Sebastian & Schargrodsky, Ernesto (ed.), 2010. "The Economics of Crime," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226153742.
    7. Soares, Rodrigo R, 2004. "Crime Reporting as a Measure of Institutional Development," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(4), pages 851-871, July.
    8. Rafael di Tella & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2009. "Happiness, Ideology and Crime in Argentine Cities," Research Department Publications 4645, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    9. Brendan O'Flaherty & Rajiv Sethi, 2010. "Peaceable Kingdoms and War Zones: Preemption, Ballistics and Murder in Newark," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons For and From Latin America, pages 305-353, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Crime and Violence: Desensitization in Victims to Watching Criminal Events
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2018-03-20 13:34:07

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sverker Sikström & Mats Dahl, 2023. "How bad is bad? Perceptual differences in the communication of severity in intimate partner violence," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicholas Ajzenman, Sebastian Galiani, and Enrique Seira, 2014. "On the Distributed Costs of Drug-Related Homicides - Working Paper 364," Working Papers 364, Center for Global Development.
    2. Nicolas Ajzenman & Sebastian Galiani & Enrique Seira, 2015. "On the Distributive Costs of Drug-Related Homicides," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4).
    3. Galiani, Sebastian & Lopez Cruz, Ivan & Torrens, Gustavo, 2018. "Stirring up a hornets’ nest: Geographic distribution of crime," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 17-35.
    4. Salm, M. & Vollaard, B.A., 2014. "Individual Perceptions of Local Crime Risk," Discussion Paper 2014-072, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    5. Michael Clemens, Çaglar Özden, and Hillel Rapoport, 2014. "Migration and Development Research Is Moving Far beyond Remittances - Working Paper 365," Working Papers 365, Center for Global Development.
    6. Mejía, Daniel & Restrepo, Pascual, 2016. "Crime and conspicuous consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 1-14.
    7. Laura Jaitman, 2019. "Frontiers in the economics of crime: lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 28(1), pages 1-36, December.
    8. Francis Petterini & Akauã Flores, 2021. "Copula econometrics to simulate effects of private policing on crime," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 1241-1254.
    9. Baumann, Florian & Friehe, Tim, 2013. "Private protection against crime when property value is private information," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 73-79.
    10. Ross Hickey & Steeve Mongrain & Joanne Roberts & Tanguy van Ypersele, 2021. "Private protection and public policing," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 23(1), pages 5-28, February.
    11. Carlos Medina & Jorge Andrés Tamayo, 2011. "An Assessment of How Urban Crime and Victimization Affects Life Satisfaction," Borradores de Economia 640, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    12. James Alm & Keith Finlay, 2013. "Who Benefits from Tax Evasion?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 139-154, September.
    13. O’Flaherty, Brendan & Sethi, Rajiv, 2015. "Urban Crime," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1519-1621, Elsevier.
    14. Juan Botero & Alejandro Ponce & Andrei Shleifer, 2013. "Education, Complaints, and Accountability," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 959-996.
    15. Islam,Asif Mohammed, 2016. "An exploration of the relationship between police presence, crime, and business in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7560, The World Bank.
    16. Luisa Blanco & Robin Grier & Kevin Grier & Daniel Hicks, 2021. "Household responses to escalating violence in Mexico," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 315-318, February.
    17. Juan Botero & Alejandro Ponce & Andrei Shleifer, 2012. "Education and the Quality of Government," NBER Working Papers 18119, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Victor Daniel Iajya & Andrés Esteban Ramasco, 2019. "Victimización y Percepción de Inseguridad en el NOA," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4155, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    19. Daniel W. Gingerich & Virginia Oliveros, 2018. "Police Violence and the Underreporting of Crime," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 78-105, March.
    20. Victor Daniel Iajya & Andrés Esteban Ramasco, 2022. "Victimización y Percepción de Inseguridad en el NOA," Working Papers 164, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23697. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.