Decisions to Commit Profitable Crime Available to Purchase

This paper presents the results of an empirical study conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Freiburg, in 1989–91. The main question of the study was ‘How does the potential perpetrator calculate the costs and benefits of a profitable criminal act?’. Decision theory is used to select a special set of variables in order to explain criminal enrichment and from this four variables explained most of the criminal behaviour that is planned and carried out to yield criminal profit. Subjective evaluations of profit, risk, punishment and moral costs explained 80–90 per cent of the willingness to commit a profitable crime. Data were collected based on a specially constructed questionnaire using hypothetical decision scenarios. Criminals and non‐criminals answered the questionnaire. The two groups mainly differed in their evaluation of the moral costs and in weighting the profits and punishment of a criminal offence.