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| Hadiya Pendleton |
But several days later, on January 29th, she was senselessly
killed by a purported gang member in a south-side Chicago park. Hadiya and her
friends had taken shelter from the rain under a canopy in Harsh Park when
Michael Ward, 18, allegedly opened fire on the group in a tragic case of
mistaken identity – he thought they were rival gang members when in fact
they were just a bunch of kids out celebrating after completing their mid-year
exams.
The pathos of Hadiya’s death was overwhelming to her family
and the community. President Obama recognized the event in his State of
the Union address, remembering Hadiya while calling for stricter gun controls.
But what was it that made Ward, just a few years older than
Hadiya, think it was acceptable to indiscriminately spray a group of young
people with gunfire? Ward was in the company of one Kenneth Williams, 20, who
had been shot in the arm by another gang last year. In his confession, Ward claimed
that he was seeking revenge against that gang. What is it that allows young men
to shoot each other with impunity in a city that registered over 2400 shootings
and nearly 500 homicides in 2012? And this in a city with some of the toughest
gun laws on the books?
There is a theory that addresses this and it has to do with “certainty
of punishment.” While it might seem odd,
it turns out that criminals are very savvy about applying economic risk/benefit
analysis to their decisions. Criminals calculate (intuitively, as their actual
math skills are typically lacking) an “expected value” of punishment by
applying the probability of being punished to the extent of the actual (not on paper)
punishment.
For instance, while the law might call for 5 years in prison
for carrying an illegal gun, they observe that the probability of being caught
is very low. Hence, they calculate that the “expected value” of the punishment
is far less than 5 years. Further, even
if caught, they see that the typical punishment is only a year of probation
with no prison time at all. So in spite of the seemingly tough sanction against
carrying an illegal gun, the criminal calculates that the “certainty of punishment”
is actually very, very low. Hence, in their warped but canny minds, the
benefits of carrying a gun far outweigh its costs.
All this is actually going on in Chicago. While having very
tough laws on the books, the cops are dismayed to see offenders they manage to
apprehend back on the streets within days. Williams, who provided the gun that
killed Hadiya, should have been in prison for parole violations following an
earlier gun offense. The cops blame prosecutors and judges, but the judges
blame state and local budgets that limit available prison beds. So it comes
down to a type of “guns vs. butter” argument – social welfare and pension spending
vs. cops on the street and prison beds.
In our zeal to pass new gun laws, it might be worthwhile to
ponder how effectively existing laws are being enforced, how certain the
punishment for violations are, and how severely the actual punishments are adjudicated.
Criminals must assess the “certainty of punishment” as being very, very high if
we want to change their behavior.
In the case of Hadiya, her assailants’ long
criminal records give sad testimony to ineffective execution of the law.
Another toothless law on the books would not have helped, no matter how good it
made us feel.
