This paper specifies a continuous time model of the probability of recidivism to provide evidence on the main hypothesis of the economics of crime that people weigh the costs and benefits of criminal activity in a rational utility maximizing process. Since the size of the illicit drug industry has proliferated dramatically in the recent past, drug-related offenders are used in the model. / The existence of a complete market for illicit drugs makes imperative the use of economic analyses. In order to characterize the probabilistic nature of recidivism, a formal search model is developed, which reflects the uncertainty and the risks associated with transactions in the illicit drug market. This model links economic incentives of market participants and their empirical behaviors. / A hazard model is estimated that analyzes the length of time in a given state (outside prison) prior to transition out of that state (re-incarceration). Among various hazard specifications, the Weibull hazard is adopted to shed some insights on the duration dependence with three categories of independent variables: opportunity cost, disincentives, and control variables. / The result shows that the opportunity cost perspective is fairly promising. The length of incarceration is not playing a significant role as a specific deterrent variable among drug offenders. Consequently, a long period of incarceration should apply, for an incapacitation purpose, only to those who are most likely to recidivate, i.e., those who have very low opportunity cost. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-03, Section: A, page: 0937. / Major Professor: David W. Rasmussen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_78201 |
| Contributors | Kim, Iljoong., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 196 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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