Crime and status: A contribution to strain theory

This paper studies the implications of strain theory for equilibrium crime rates in a simple economic model by assuming that potential offenders care about their relative position. We establish that subjects’ status concerns allow for multiple crime rate equilibria and that these positional preferences may modify the results regarding predictions about how crime changes in response to a higher detection probability and a higher sanction. In addition, we argue that the socially optimal level of the detection probability and the sanction will often be higher when potential offenders care about their relative position.