The Optimal Magnitude and Probability of Fines with Court Congestion

This paper extends the law enforcement model to include court congestion. Society suffers harm from court congestion since delay affects the credibility and the reliability of the criminal justice system. The core result of the paper is that the probability of apprehension and the probability of conviction should be considered separately by the enforcement authority. Because the level of congestion is affected by the probability of apprehension only, the use of fines and conviction should be exhausted before resorting to the costlier (in terms of court congestion costs) instrument of apprehension.