On controlling crime with corrupt officials

Abstract This paper attempts to synthesize the recently developed strategic approach towards modeling corruption and the classical views. The following propositions are sought to be proved: (a) If reward schemes are introduced, the classical and the strategic approaches yield similar results so far as controlling crime is concerned; (b) With probability of detection being dependent on the effort of a corrupt official, crime cannot be controlled; and (c) In the context of an infinitely repeated game of crime, the corrupt law enforcing agent might choose less bribes and lower effort level than the myopic optimal and hence would strategically pamper crime.