Economic Analysis of Criminal Sanction in Drug Crimes: A Case Study of Convicts in Mashhad

Document Type : Scientific research

Authors

Hamid Reza Mirzajani ¹

Mohamad Jalali ²

¹ Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Islamic Azad University, Branch of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

² Phd Student of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Islamic Azad University, Branch of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/economlaw.2024.83989.1306

Abstract

Criminals often engage in a calculated assessment of the potential gains and risks before committing a crime.Criminal strictness in drug crimes and the relative retreat of the Iranian legislature in the face of heavy punishments such as death in 2016 require that the issue of the effectiveness of criminal enforcement be examined from the perspective of those convicted of crimes in this area. Therefore, the present research seeks to analyze the economic analysis of criminal enforcement in drug crimes. This research is descriptive-exploratory in terms of its applied nature and methodolog.  To assess the economic analysis of punishment by criminals, individuals convicted of drug-related crimes were systematically identified. The statistical population of this study comprises all individuals with a definitive history of drug-related convictions in the city of Mashhad. Given the lack of precise information on the number of convicts, a sample size of 160 individuals was selected from the accessible population. The data collection tool in this study was a researcher-designed questionnaire, which underwent content and face validity confirmation through expert opinions. Its reliability was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, resulting in 0.89. For data analysis, various statistical methods such as t-tests, ANOVA, and basic statistics like mean and standard deviation were employed. Based on findings from convicts’ opinions on drug-related matters, criminals involved in drug crimes perceive the costs of long-term imprisonment and asset forfeiture to be greater than execution. Surprisingly, this contradicts the conventional assumption that the cost of execution outweighs any other crime. Therefore, when assessing the benefits and desirability, it is essential to consider the context and specific circumstances rather than treating criminals as abstract and fixed entities. In practice, the utility versus cost trade-off is evaluated by criminals on a case-by-case basis, accounting for situational factors. Also, statistical analysis showed that with increasing age, level of education and history of committing, attention to economic analysis of punishments is done more accurately.

Keywords

Economic Analysis of Punishment

Execution

Drug Crimes

Confiscation of Property

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©2024 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

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