Selective Law Enforcement and the Actions of Potential Offenders

In the framework of optimal law enforcement theory, the existed literatures have analyzed the acts of selective law enforcement under the static conditions. In this paper, we use incomplete information dynamic game model to analyze the process of dynamic game between the enforcer and the potential offenders. The result shows that the potential offenders can get relevant enforcement information by observing, studying, and predicting the situations and modify their behaviors based on this information. These opportunistic behaviors not only bring the inefficient allocation of resources, but also damage the credibility and justice of the law.