Crime Preferences: A Conjoint Experiment

• In Event: Poster Session 1

Abstract

In this research, we examined how people evaluate the risks, rewards, and opportunity costs of various criminal opportunities. Researchers have traditionally used experimental vignettes – manipulating one or two factors and asking respondents whether they would commit the offense. Researchers rarely asked respondents to choose between criminal opportunities, even though research suggests offenders often consider several opportunities at once. We conducted a conjoint experiment where respondents evaluated pairs of criminal opportunities and selected their preferred one. Each respondent was presented with five pairs of randomly generated criminal opportunities, defined by seven attributes with a varying number of levels. We based the attributes on previous research and theories of offender decision-making; they included: the probability of arrest, severity of punishment, financial payout, opportunity costs, and the people involved (i.e., presence of offenders and victim type). Respondents were more likely to select opportunities with a higher financial payout, lower chance of arrest, and more lenient punishment. They were also more likely to select richer victims over poor ones and large corporations over small business. We find some evidence that the importance of these attributes depended on respondents’ characteristics.

Authors

• Andrew T. Krajewski, University of Texas at Dallas

• Bruce Jacobs, University of Texas at Dallas

• Justin Pickett, University at Albany, SUNY