Matjaž Perc (Author), Karsten Donnay (Author), Dirk Helbing (Author)

Abstract

Containing the spreading of crime is a major challenge for society. Yet, since thousands of years, no effective strategy has been found to overcome crime. To the contrary, empirical evidence shows that crime is recurrent, a fact that is not captured well by rational choice theories of crime. According to these, strong enough punishment should prevent crime from happening. To gain a better understanding of the relationship between crime and punishment, we consider that the latter requires prior discovery of illicit behavior and study a spatial version of the inspection game. Simulations reveal the spontaneous emergence of cyclic dominance between criminals, inspectors, and ordinary people as a consequence of spatial interactions. Such cycles dominate the evolutionary process, in particular when the temptation to commit crime or the cost of inspection are low or moderate. Yet, there are also critical parameter values beyond which cycles cease to exist and the population is dominated either by a stable mixture of criminals and inspectors or one of these two strategies alone. Both continuous and discontinuous phase transitions to different final states are possible, indicating that successful strategies to contain crime can be very much counter-intuitive and complex. Our results demonstrate that spatial interactions are crucial for the evolutionary outcome of the inspection game, and they also reveal why criminal behavior is likely to be recurrent rather than evolving towards an equilibrium with monotonous parameter dependencies.

Keywords

zločin;evolucijske igre;kolektivni pojav;fazni prehodi;statistična fizika;crime;evolutionary games;collective phenomena;phase transitions;statistical physics;

Data

Language: English
Year of publishing:
Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization: UM FNM - Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
UDC: 53
COBISS: 20143880 Link will open in a new window
ISSN: 1932-6203
Views: 957
Downloads: 406
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Other data

Secondary language: Slovenian
Secondary keywords: zločin;evolucijske igre;kolektivni pojav;fazni prehodi;statistična fizika;
URN: URN:SI:UM:
Type (COBISS): Scientific work
Pages: str. e76063-1-e76063-7
Volume: ǂVol. ǂ8
Issue: ǂiss. ǂ10
Chronology: 2013
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0076063
ID: 10843454