Analysis of crime control strategies

Abstract An important problem in the selection of crime control programs is the choice among broad crime control strategies. This paper presents a Markov approach to the study of one important aspect of the analysis of crime control strategies—the characterization of the criminal population. Results indicate that persons with previous arrest records may commit a somewhat smaller proportion of the common crimes of robbery, burglary, larceny over $50, and assault than is indicated by rearrest data.