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Sharper's avatar

I like the crime security insurance angle. You take out crime victim insurance with a firm, who presumably makes agreements with other similar firms, does reinsurance, etc... all that standard stuff. You comply with their standard policies regarding preventing crime. If you are victimized, they are responsible for paying you restitution, but in your contract you sign over the right to pursue the criminal.

Their incentive is to both deter criminals from preying on their customers and to collect from criminals what restitution is available to help make up their losses. They'd typically be a professional organization at investigating crimes, or else they'd subcontract with one, similar to how current art theft insurance, for example, works.

Applying that to the numbered concerns:1. The investigatory budget is supplied by the insurance payments and primarily recouped from the caught criminals.2. The insurance company doesn't have an incentive to let criminals off the hook.3. They're involved professionally, so average quality of investigation rises.4. They have an incentive to not spend more than is optimal on a particular criminal.5. Ditto cost-effectiveness, including in defensive anti-criminal technologies.

6. Single source for investigation authorization.7. Only one prosecution per victim.8-10. Not using many hunters.

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Tom W. Bell's avatar

A new tack: Many of these problems arise from the assumption that some governing body must pay bounties. The example given by 18th England suggests it suffices to make criminals responsible for payment of fines. As David Friedman notes in his analysis, this gives an incentive to go after richer rather than poorer defendants. But as that same example teachers, there remain ample incentives to prosecute even criminals that own nothing.

In that system...

1. The budget for prosecutions is provided in the first instance by criminals and secondarily by as a club good by parties joined in common defense.

2. We don't care if criminals buy off prosecutions. Indeed, the prospect of settlement is a large incentive to prosecute.

3. We can accept that prosecutors' luck shapes outcomes because we expect that the right to prosecute will be transferred in due course to the party most likely to succeed. Coase.

4. The system provides incentives for "hunters" (as well as the more general class of prosecutors) to adapt; see answer 3. The right to prosecute will be transferable.

In my version, the victim has a presumptive right to prosecute but others might. In fact, maybe it would be best to vest the right in the victim(s) or estate(s) and then allow prosecutors to assume the right by payment of a transfer fee to the victim.

5. This system provides incentives to innovate.

6. Nobody need worry about the first party on the scene of the crime messing up the evidence because that evidence would constitute a valuable asset. Why? Because prosecuting the criminal can lead to gain, and having that evidence makes prosecution more efficient.

7. Agreed that there should be a double jeopardy defense.

8. As we've discussed elsewhere, the problem of privacy-invading prosecutions might be solved by making prosecutors potentially liable for intrusions into the privacy of accused parties--on condition that the parties not settle or, if it goes to trial, the prosecutor wins.

9. Several hunters will not likely simultaneously pursue the same crime assuming adequate controls on double jeopardy. There will be an incentive to file suit first, balanced by the risk of not having adequate evidence to win or otherwise misjudging the case. Presumably, losers pay winners costs. See Ulex!

10. Prosecutors need not be given a special privilege to impose on witnesses. If they want testimony, they can persuade witnesses to give it by charm, moral suasion, or cash.

Of course, you might say to all this: I *want* a bounty system! But if you can take another step towards privatization, and add a few rules, your problems seem to greatly ease.

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