/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3966560/11754389_920572351334762_1285855543300283646_o.jpg)
via The funny, surprisingly successful tactic some police are using to catch drug dealers – Vox.
Milton Friedman predicted this police calling card to competing drug gangs
15 Aug 2015 2 Comments
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, economics of crime, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, liberalism, Milton Friedman, Public Choice Tags: cartel theory, crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, organised crime, war on drugs
Why are ex-Communists still on the Left forgiven for their past?
15 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of crime, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: autocracy, communism, ex-Communists, genocide, mass murder, reigns of terror, tinpot dictatorships, totalitarian dictatorships
When communism fell, so did mass killings. buff.ly/1PhbuYd #peace http://t.co/kZ3kKD3RI3—
HumanProgress.org (@humanprogress) August 11, 2015
Crime in the Big Apple
14 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, law and order, New York City
Nice WSJ graph of the remarkable decline in crime in NYC since 2002. on.wsj.com/19XvVY5 http://t.co/iLDNufelVB—
Miles Kimball (@mileskimball) December 31, 2013
@radleybalko @thecounted 156 killed by police 1 July-11 August. How did they die?
13 Aug 2015 2 Comments
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: common law, crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, law enforcement, police
@radleybalko @thecounted 25 killed by police 5-12 August. How did they die? @PoliticalLine
12 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: common law, crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, law enforcement, police
Grammar pedants don’t know when to stop
04 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, health economics, law and economics Tags: economics of language
RT Hold my beer while I rob this lady
02 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics
Using Enron to explain Bedford’s law of forensics statistics
02 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of crime, law and economics Tags: Benford's law, crime and punishment, forensics statistics
Some frauds are sometimes easier to uncover. For example, in a recent Iranian presidential election, the governing candidate led by 2 to 1 votes all night. Next to no variation despite returns coming in from the more liberal cities and the rather conservative country ballot boxes.
Bedford’s law is used to uncover fraud through peculiarity in the occurrence of numbers. The law states that in many naturally occurring collections of numbers, the small digits occur disproportionately often as leading significant digits such as the number one.
In the finest traditions of Stephen Stigler’s law of scientific epiphany, Benford was the second person to discover it and he got credit for it rather than the first (Simon Newcomb) by undertaking a proper analysis:
Newcomb didn’t provide any sort of explanation for his finding. He noted it as a curiosity, and in the face of a general lack of interest it was quickly forgotten.
That was until 1938, when Frank Benford, a physicist at the general electric company, noticed the same pattern. Fascinated by this discovery, Benford set out to see exactly how well numbers from the real world corresponded to the law. He collected an enormous set of data including baseball statistics, areas of river catchments, and the addresses of the first 342 people listed in the book American Men of Science.
Benford observed that even using such a menagerie of data, the numbers were a good approximation to the law that Newcomb had discovered half a century before.
About 30% began with 1, 18% with 2 and so on. His analysis was evidence for the existence of the law, but Benford, also, was unable to explain quite why this should be so.
If someone tries to falsify numbers, they will have to invent some data. They use too many numbers starting with digits in the mid range, 5,6,7 and not enough numbers starting with 1. This violation of Bedford’s Law, suggesting the possibility such as at Enron.
Would the reckless maritime protests of @Greenpeace be tolerated on land?
01 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, environmental economics, environmentalism, law and economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights, Rawls and Nozick, transport economics Tags: Greenpeace, John Rawls, peaceful protest
Were the Greenpeace runabouts observing maritime safety rules such as avoiding collisions and giving way? Any protester that behaved like that in a car would be immediately arrested and charged.
Why it is tolerated in the high seas is beyond me when it would never be tolerated on the road. No one would pretend reckless driving was peaceful protest. Is it okay to behave recklessly in a boat? No one would accept that in a car on land.
Central to the notion of peaceful protest is fidelity to democracy and the rule of law. The idea is not to impose your will upon others, but to persuade the majority to reconsider their position by showing the passionate extent to which you disagree with them and honestly believe they are mistaken.
The civil disobedient is attempting to appeal to the “sense of justice” of the majority and a willingness to accept arrest is proof of the integrity of the act says Rawls:
…any interference with the civil liberties of others tends to obscure the civilly disobedient quality of one’s act.
Rawls argues that the use or threat of violence is incompatible with a reasoned appeal to fellow citizens to move them to change a law. The actions are not a means of coercing or frightening others into conforming to one’s wishes. That is a breach of the principles of a just society.
Death rates for homicide, black and white males aged 15 to 19, USA, 1950-2013
01 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: crime and punishment, life expectancies
Figure 1: Death rates for homicide, black and white males aged 15 to 19: United States, selected years 1950-2013
Source: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
ISIS terrorist attacks this year
30 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics, war and peace Tags: ISIS, Middle-East politics, war against terror
https://twitter.com/nytgraphics/status/625780164610379777/photo/1
ISIS has inspired or directed attacks in at least 14 countries outside of Iraq and Syria nyti.ms/1Lfwbof http://t.co/ptDFG3EXRU—
NYT Graphics (@nytgraphics) July 27, 2015
The death toll in high-speed police chases
30 Jul 2015 1 Comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, transport economics Tags: crime and punishment, law and order, law enforcement, police, trade-offs, unintended consequences
High-speed police chases kill 330 people per year, one-third of whom are innocent bystanders: priceonomics.com/the-case-for-b… http://t.co/uFmzxgcplk—
Zachary Crockett (@zzcrockett) July 22, 2015
Crimes by age and offence category
27 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, occupational choice, politics - USA Tags: crime and punishment, criminal deterrence
How to make the case for arming British police when attacking American police shootings
26 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, health and safety, labour economics, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: common law, crime and punishment, law enforcement, occupational health and safety, police, rule of law
More British English, Scottish and Welsh police (68) have been murdered by gunfire than British police have shot people dead (52) in over a century.
Source: Number of police officers shot dead in the UK by decade | John Graham-Cumming.
This suggests to me that the ledger is in the wrong direction. This list does not include British police stabbed or beaten to death nor are Northern Ireland deaths.
According to the FBI, from 1980–2014, an average of 55 law enforcement officers are feloniously killed per year in the USA. Those killed in accidents in the line of duty are not included in this number.
More law enforcement officers are murdered every year in the USA than ever murdered by gunfire in Britain. Police have the same common law right as any other to defend their own lives and the lives of others.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2849636/Screen_Shot_2014-12-21_at_1.42.15_PM.0.png)
When I worked at Marxism Today, my desire to earn a living proved to be somewhat déclassé.
26 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, labour economics, law and economics, Marxist economics, minimum wage, poverty and inequality Tags: far left, Labour standards, Left-wing hypocrisy, Leftover Left, living wage, progressive left
Recent Comments