Secondly, the law treats some criminal offenses in the same way, despite the fact that the harm caused by them is clearly different. The concept of the eggshell victim of a crime is thus similar to the plaintiff's concept of the "eggshell skull" in tort law.
THE ECONOMIC THEORY OF CRIME DISPLACEMENT
Finally III. part explains why precautionary measures tend to shift crime from eggshell victims to less harmed victims, resulting in a net reduction in the social costs of crime. The conclusion offers some comments on future research, including non-economic considerations, which may play a greater role in the discussion of crime displacement in the future.
The Private Incentives to Take Precautions
The crime-related loss that would otherwise be suffered by the individual is a social cost (and the elimination of that loss represents a social gain), as is the cost of taking the precautionary measure. The socially optimal level of precaution is the point at which the marginal cost of the precaution equals its marginal benefit.
The Types of Precautions That Displace Crime
On the contrary, it is widely believed that users of The Club probably increase the risk that cars without2. Compared to other types of anti-theft devices, the main advantage of The Club is its high visibility.
Why Displacement Is Considered
According to the federal sentencing guidelines, e.g. theft of $500,000 a higher penalty (thirty-three to forty-one months) than theft of, say, fifteen to twenty-one months.3 7 The penalty imposed in each case is commensurate with the harm caused, even though both offenses may be considered the same crime (eg, grand larceny).” A provision that moves an aggravated assault from A to B, cannot reduce the societal cost of the crime; A is exactly offset by the loss to B.
The Impact of Displacement on Policy Discourse
THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN LAW AND HARMS
Victims are heterogeneous; the law systematically underestimates the total harm suffered by so-called victims of eggshells. Therefore, it is wrong to conclude that shifting crime from one victim to another cannot affect the social cost of crime.
The Law Ignores Some Harms
The Loss of Sentimental Value
People attach sentimental value to all kinds of possessions, such as family heirlooms and souvenirs. It is easy to see why – if we ignore sentimental values – society has no reason to care whether a thief steals property of the same market value from victim A or from victim B. The sentimental value is destroyed by the theft, because it is not transferred. to the thief and it cannot be restored by replacing the property.
34;sentimental value." Society now has a reason to prefer that the thief take A's ring instead of B's—B would lose $20,000 more from this crime—even though the law would treat the two thefts identically.
Search C osts
Therefore, the theft of B's camera is more expensive - for society, and not just for B - than the theft of A's camera, even though the cameras themselves are identical and the law would treat the two thefts the same. For example, one study found that women are willing to pay much more ($1,350) compared to men ($666) to avoid negotiating a car purchase.7 The amount someone would be willing to pay to avoid negotiating can be the futile use of negotiations. It follows that the theft of an item from someone who hates negotiating, for whatever reason, would cost more to society than the theft of an identical item from someone who enjoys the negotiation process, or at least doesn't enjoy it objects to.
By law, the loss is equal to the fair market value of the property.
Unforeseeable Harms
Thus, two thefts may be treated identically by law, even though one imposed much higher search costs on the victim—and thus was more harmful to society—than the other. "Eggshell". X is guilty of simple assault and not aggravated assault, so long as he did not "willfully, knowingly or recklessly" cause B's brain damage." MODEL PENAL CODE A] the person is not guilty of an offense , unless he acted intentionally, knowingly. , negligently or negligently, as the law may require, in relation to any material element of the criminal offense").
34;reasonably foreseeable pecuniary harm," i.e., "harm which the defendant knew, or under the circumstances reasonably should have known, was a potential result of the offense."2 Suppose X steals $10,000 in cash from B; although X does not knowing it at the time, B planned to invest this money in a certain security that quickly tripled in value.
The Law Ignores Variances in the Degree of Harm
Pecuniary Losses
First, consider how the law classifies and punishes theft crimes based on the amount of monetary damages involved. 1) announces rules of conduct; (2) determines whether a violation of these rules is apparent; and (3) assess the penalty for flagrant violations). The size of the damage thus plays a central role in determining the degree of the crime, i.e. whether it will be called "grand" or "petty" theft, as well as the punishment that is threatened for it. In the state of Texas, for example, the criminal code classifies all theft crimes involving losses ranging from a few dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars into just seven different levels, ranging in severity from a class C felony to a first degree felony. as the amount of property damage is increasing.
But increases in the size of the monetary loss do not always increase the length of the sentence, or at least, they do not increase it in similar proportion.
Physical Injuries
However, the degree and punishment that the law applies to any given crime only indicates that a particular type of property damage has been caused. At some point, of course, the degree of physical injury will increase enough to warrant a higher rating; if, for example, the first victim died, the crime would be treated as murder, not assault.). The sentence imposed by law can provide additional information about the degree of physical harm done in the case (assuming, of course, that the defendant was caught, convicted, and sentenced).
Ironically, in the assault cases discussed above, the defendant who caused the more severe of the two sets of injuries received a lighter sentence - probation instead of a three-year prison sentence.99 In short, neither the assessment given nor the sentence imposed in the criminal case accurately indicates the level of physical injuries suffered by the victim.
Psychological Harms
However, it is rare for the law to distinguish between crimes of the same type - rape, burglary or hate crime - based on the degree of psychological harm caused (or not caused) in individual cases. In other words, the law assumes that all victims of each of these crimes suffer the same degree of psychological harm. 9 The same improvement applies to any residential burglary,"0 although some residential burglary victims clearly suffer more.
The same enhancement applies to all hate crimes, regardless of the impact on the victim.
Distinguishing Victim Harms and Offender Benefits
A THEORY OF BENEFICIAL DISPLACEMENT
It suggests that when precautionary measures displace crime, they are likely to reduce the costs of crime.
Displaced Crimes Are Generally
As long as some low-harm victims refrain from taking precautions—and empirical evidence suggests that few precautions are taken by all (or even the majority of) population-displacing crime, the social costs of crime will decline.”7. Taking precautions among eggshell victims increases the risk of crime for other victims with less harm (up to 10/90, or roughly eleven percent). Without this precaution, the expected social cost of the thefts (not counting any profits for the burglars) is $120,000.
Differences in the scale of crime losses may explain why many types of precautionary measures are not as universally used as conventional wisdom seems to predict.
Potential Market Failures
Wealth Constraints
Therefore, it is unlikely that the precautions of wealthy households will displace property crime to poor households, even those that are more vulnerable. 9 (Remember that to displace crime, victims must be good substitutes in the eyes of criminals.) It seems more likely that precautionary measures by some wealthy households will displace crime to other wealthy households—namely, the households of wealthy low-victims who takes fewer precautions. Although asset constraints may allow some rent-seeking measures to occur, it is unlikely to occur often enough to change the underlying case for beneficial displacement.
However, assuming that a criminal is interested in something other than financial gain or that a rich and a poor aim to have comparable goods, the taking of precautions by the rich may shift crime to poor families and may undesirable life, from the economic point of view.
Information Distortions
The low-harm victim simply shifted the risk of crime to other similar victims. 35 When citizens are exposed to constant media coverage of crime stories, citizens may overestimate the number of violent crimes that actually occur, and therefore the risk that they will become victims of such crimes. In short, some consumers may take too many (or too few) precautions because they misperceive the risk of crime.
However, it does not necessarily follow that misunderstandings about the risk of crime necessarily undermine the theory of beneficial displacement.
D om ino Eff ects
But the best answer to this problem may be to address the underlying cause of the distortion - the misperception of risk, rather than regulating precautions. The benefit of the precaution for each low-damage victim is now approximately $55 - only slightly more than the cost of the precaution. In theory, it is possible that marked differences between groups of potential victims—in terms of the values they attach to their goods, the search costs they face in replacing goods, the psychological costs of crime, and so on—could prevent the domino effect .140.
Further, even if the domino effect occurs, it is impossible to say that it will be undesirable.
Rethinking the Regulation of Private Precautions
Some scholars have suggested charging a fee for the use of crime-displacing safeguards; the fee will be equal to the social cost of the crime, discounted by the precautionary measure's effect (if any) on the likelihood that the crime will occur.'42 Under the theory of beneficial displacement, a tax is on preventive measures that displace crime . remains an attractive, if politically difficult, policy response. The size of the fee charged should depend on the cost of the crime to displaced victims, but as demonstrated above, that cost is not the same as the average cost to all victims. Rather, the main thesis of the Article is that displacement is not as wasteful as conventional wisdom suggests.
Certainly, these precautions can be effective; the reduction in the harmfulness of the crime can easily exceed the cost of the precaution, even for the last (marginal) precaution-taker.
