Profiling restrictions in a model of law enforcement and strategic crime

We develop a game-theoretic model of strategic crime in which a criminal organization chooses the profile of the operative it recruits to carry out illegal activities and a law enforcement agency allocates screening capacity across different population groups. Our model incorporates heterogeneity in both criminal effectiveness and recruitment costs across population groups. Restricting the use of profiling by law enforcement officers prevents them from adopting the best response to the criminal organization’s recruitment strategy. But, rather than simply leaving law enforcement worse off, the restrictions can change the recruitment patterns of the criminal organization in ways that could have positive or negative effects on the total amount of successful criminal activity. We formally explore these mechanisms. Whether profiling restrictions reduce crime depends on how different types of heterogeneity across population groups are aligned. When profiling restrictions do reduce crime, weak restrictions on the use of profiling are generally more effective than strong restrictions.