On the evolutionary dynamics of crime

In this paper we examine the economics of crime deterrence from an evolutio nary perspective. A bimatrix game is used to model the interaction between populations of property owners and (potential) criminals, given exogenous l evels of public policing and criminal sanctions. A crucial element in our a nalysis is the private effort property owners exert to prevent theft. The d ynamics show that the crime rate is cyclical over time, and the average cri me rate over the cycle is invariant to the magnitude of criminal sanctions. Furthermore, increased public policing raises the average crime rate until a threshold level of policing is reached, where the crime rate falls. JEL Classification: K42, C72.