How can we deter crime?

Increasing the headcount in the police and the judiciary is an answer, but its opportunity cost needs to be worked out

Crime is deterred by the probability of getting caught. For one case — theft in New Delhi — we estimate the probability of getting caught is under 3 per cent. The criminal justice system is not deterring crime. We can make punishments more draconian, but this generally leads to greater corruption. We can increase the headcount by 10 times, but this is expensive. The way forward lies in organisation and process reform, which yields a 10-fold reduction in the man-days expended per conviction.

The probability of getting caught

The Crime Victimisation Survey (CVS) measures outcomes as seen by citizens. Using a recent