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Cover of: Wrongful Convictions Do Lower Deterrence
Nuno Garoupa, Matteo Rizzolli

Wrongful Convictions Do Lower Deterrence

Section: Articles
Volume 168 (2012) / Issue 2, pp. 224-231 (8)
Published 09.07.2018
DOI 10.1628/093245612800933988
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  • 10.1628/093245612800933988
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Summary
The conventional result of the theory of the public enforcement of law is that wrongful convictions of innocents are detrimental to deterrence. This proposition has been challenged recently. In some cases, wrongful convictions do not jeopardize deterrence, because they influence equally the innocent and the guilty. Therefore deterrence does not change. We show that, in general, wrongful convictions do lower deterrence. We prove that wrongful convictions do not jeopardize deterrence only in very limited circumstances or under unlikely assumptions.