Market For Cheating

I think I witnessed my first attempt at cheating by a student last week. This person had his notes right below his seat! He was stealing a glance at these notes after quickly checking if I was looking towards his direction. Does he think I can't see what he's doing? This kind of evidence though won't survive the honor code violation proceedings, apparently cases of his word against my word are loaded in favor of the violator (there goes your deterrence effect). I ended up standing by his side the last five minutes of the quiz to deter what he was doing.

Gary Becker way back in the 60s wrote about the economics of crime. He basically makes the point that it is not the severity of the fines that prevents crime from happening but the overall "expected punishment." This expected punishment (probability of being caught multiplied by the fine/punishment) should equal the benefit that the offender puts on committing the crime. So some crimes do happen, some get deterred. Some crimes are deemed "efficient crimes" where its cost to society is lower than the benefit to the offender. But if we want to lower criminal acts, we have to set expected punishments high.

There is a vibrant market for cheating. Just search the internet for sites that offer term paper writing services. A columnist for Slate.com reviewed some of these services. Cases of academic dishonesty will continue. The only way to curve it is to increase expected punishment. But we don't see a strong move towards increased prosecution and punishment. Is it possibly an efficient crime?