We examine the game theoretic properties of a model of crime first introduced by Short et al. (2010 Phys. Rev. E 82, 066114) as the SBD Adversarial Game. We identify the rationalizable strategies and one-shot equilibria under multiple equilibrium refinements. We further show that SBD’s main result about the effectiveness of defecting-punishers (“Informants”) in driving the system to evolve to the cooperative equilibrium under an imitation dynamic generalizes to a best response dynamic, though only under certain parameter regimes. The nature of this strategy’s role, however, differs significantly between the two dynamics: in the SBD imitation dynamic, Informants are sufficient but not necessary to achieve the cooperative equilibrium, while under the best response dynamic, Informants are necessary but not sufficient for convergence to cooperation. Since a policy of simply converting citizens to Informants will not guarantee success under best response dynamics, we identify alternative strategies that may help the system reach cooperation in this case, e.g., the use of moderate but not too severe punishments on criminals.


    Access

    Download


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Crime, punishment, and evolution in an adversarial game


    Contributors:

    Publication date :

    2016-06-01


    Remarks:

    European Journal of Applied Mathematics , 27 (03) pp. 317-337. (2016)


    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Classification :

    DDC:    629



    Crime, Punishment and Redemption: A convict's story

    Causer, Tim | Online Contents | 2015


    Crime, Punishment and Redemption: A convict's story

    Causer, Tim | Taylor & Francis Verlag | 2015




    Crime and punishment: The 1991 Road Traffic Act

    Pearce, L. / Great Britain | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2002