INSIDE-OUT ECONOMICS / NORWICH CASE FILE01 / 03 · THE POLL
YOUR CITY. YOUR CHOICE.
THE NORWICH PURGE.
24 hours without criminal law. Which temptation would be hardest to resist?
Enter one vote per student from your Genially poll.
INSIDE-OUT ECONOMICS / NORWICH CASE FILE02 / 03 · TWO SHOCKS
TWO SHOCKS. ONE CITY.
01
THE POLICING SHOCKFewer police → greater opportunity to offend
100%
0% · NONE100% · NORMAL
02
THE BEHAVIOURAL SHOCKWhat happens to people's willingness to offend?
RESTRAINT: Moral limits remain; no extra crowd effect.NO EXTRA BEHAVIOURAL EFFECT
WHAT HAPPENS TO RECORDED CRIME?Annual-equivalent scenario · Norwich city, except Norfolk murder
INSIDE-OUT ECONOMICS / NORWICH CASE FILE03 / 03 · THE REVEAL
THE ECONOMIC SURPRISE
CRIME HAS A PRICE.
Change the price. Change the behaviour.
THE STARTING POINT
These crimes really were recorded locally.
THE EXPERIMENT
Your votes changed a hypothetical scenario, not the real statistics.
THE FINANCIAL TEST
Could the same incentives tempt an otherwise respectable banker?
NEXT CASE: Replace a shoplifter with a banker chasing a £250,000 bonus. Does the explanation survive?
A thought experiment, not a forecast or an estimate of banking fraud.
WHERE DO THE NUMBERS COME FROM?
Recorded baselines in the original Murder simulation: Norwich shoplifting 2,434, burglary 406, robbery 186 (September 2025–August 2026). Norfolk murder 4 (year ending March 2026). Different areas and periods: never add these together.
Policing effect: The original simulation uses US police-number elasticities: −0.17 for aggregate property crime (shoplifting proxy), −0.23 burglary, −0.56 robbery and −0.67 murder. Calculation: baseline × (policing remaining / 100)elasticity. Using US estimates in Norwich is illustrative, not a local causal estimate.
At very low policing: The formula cannot be evaluated at zero, so effective policing is capped at 10%. The 0–60% portion is an especially uncertain extrapolation. No study estimates the consequences of a legal 24-hour Purge.
Behavioural effect: Research indicates that visible rule-breaking can affect willingness to break rules (Gino, Ayal & Ariely, 2009). It does not estimate extra murders. The three mechanisms are classroom assumptions: Restraint (none), Contagion (moderate) and Breakdown (stronger).
Student poll: Votes are mapped using an illustrative motive matrix: Money favours acquisitive crime; Power and Payback favour confrontation; Thrill favours risky behaviour. A vote is not an admission of offending. Poll results change assumed behavioural amplification only, not the policing elasticities.
Equation: Scenario count = baseline × policing factor × [1 + assumed behavioural intensity × assumed motive weight × policing-loss fraction]. The behavioural intensities are 0, 0.35 and 1.20 respectively, and are not empirical estimates.