Why repeated criminal opportunities matter: A dynamic stochastic analysis of criminal decision making

Decision makers who confront a long sequence of criminal opportunities act differently from those who confront a single opportunity. If the sequence is long enough, people will take big chances in return for very small gains, even if the probability of detection is very great and the scale of punishment very large. Risk-neutral people will appear to love risk. Patient people will appear to discount the future heavily. For long enough sequences of future opportunities, raising the probability of detection increases the amount of crime committed rather than lowering it. Constitutional safeguards are an important deterrent to crime.