Socioeconomics of crime and discretionary punishment: the case of Ghana

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to empirically verify whether “unfettered” judicial discretion in developing countries breeds corruption or not as judges could favour elites who have access to more money to steal or punish the poor who are petty‐thieves rather harshly.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper employs Suits index and regression analysis to investigate the relationship between the amount stolen and jail time. The index which is based on Lorenz curve is used to verify whether punishment for theft cases prosecuted in Ghana is anti‐petty theft, neutral, or anti‐serious theft. The regression analysis is used to explore the determinants of punishment per unit of the crime (i.e. amount stolen).

Findings

The results strongly support the claim that disproportionate penalty is assigned to petty thefts committed mostly by the poor and non‐elites. Moreover, the regression line which is almost a perfect fit indicates penalty per unit of the amount stolen decreases by 0.8 percent if the total amount stolen increases by 1 percent.

Research limitations/implications

Due to poor records on criminals, there was very limited information on recidivism, hence this was not considered in the analysis. Second, there are much more theft convictions each year in Ghana than the sample represents. However, since the convicted cases used are random, the results are reliable enough.

Social implications

Granting enormous discretionary powers to judges in developing countries may not guarantee retributive justice. Indeed the judiciary is likely to grant favours to elites who steal more and punish the poor who normally engage in petty theft disproportionately. Consequently, high discretionary powers to judges could potentially result in high blue and white collar crimes.

Originality/value

The paper makes a novel attempt at employing Suits index and regression analysis to verify the feasibility of retributive justice in the presence of unlimited discretionary powers.

Citation

Akpalu, W. and Mohammed, A. (2013), "Socioeconomics of crime and discretionary punishment: the case of Ghana", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 40 No. 2, pp. 116-126. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068291311283599