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Title:
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| Number: | 05-26 |
| Author: | |
| Issue Date: | August 2005 |
| Abstract: | The
Fourth Amendment requires police to have probable cause before
searching people or their property in criminal investigations. In
practice, it is enforced through the exclusionary rule: if police
search without probable cause, any evidence found in the search may be
excluded from court. We analyze the effects of this rule on equilibrium
elements of social welfare in a strategic model of crime and search.
The rule always increases crime. But it has two opposing effects on
police searches. It directly reduces them by reducing the chances that
they lead to successful conviction, but it also indirectly increases
them by increasing crime. If the indirect effect dominates, the rule
actually increases searches, and has an ambiguous effect on searches of
the innocent. If the direct effect dominates, it reduces searches and
wrongful searches. In contrast, direct police accountability for
wrongful searches unambiguously reduces searches and wrongful searches. |
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