Perfect Crime?

That's a perfect example, alright! and in plain view no less....

GA! Not only in plain sight, but we're lending them money to buy the gun to use to hold us up.

But it is legal and therefore by definition, not a crime.

I agree. Who wouldn't do what was what they thinkto be "in their best interest?"

trivial example:If its the wee hours and you stop at a red light and you can see no oncoming or other traffic, and no lurking police cars, pretty good chance that you're going through the stop light. (I know my probability, AND I AIN'T TELLIN!)

I'm not saying that we would steal the mona lisa or kill the idiot that drives by every morning with his car stereo subwoofer shaking us out of bed, but Human beings are wired to always do the calculus (long division actually) of reward/risk,

P=Reward / Risk;

and as the denominator (Risk) decreases, well, that just makes the numerator (Reward) appreciate more. Or is it Us appreciate the numerator more?

Who among us has not taken advantage of similar situations?

milo

Probability = reward/risk. I like that. When it's expressed mathematically it's perfectly clear. GA.

"Anybody have any comments on this statistic? What are the probabilities that a criminal opportunity with zero risk of discovery would be exploited? What about that "matter of time"? Are there any "official" or scientific references on the probability that a "perfect crime" opportunity would be exploited?"

Can a perfect crime be statistisized?, if it can it's not perfect anymore.

Good luck anyway..

The big issue is that to prepare for the perfect crime (hereafter known as TPC) you need an exorbitant amount of time to prepare so you don't raise flags buying up materials or having a short trail of purchases leading up to the crime. It could be done but you'd have to have no life apart from trailing and planning. A 10 year plan/operation could see it done but it would have to be revised continually based on the subjects movements and changes to routine etc.

Could it be done?

Yes

Would I havethe patience?

Probably not, while I have means and resources I don't have anyone on my list worth putting the effort into at the moment.

You'd really have to hate someone to put in the time.

So, there's this Vicar who is fanatical about golf. He knows he shouldn't, but, one Sunday (it's the only day of the week he's supposed to work) morning he sneaks out very early in the morning for a quick round on his own. Everything goes perfectly he gets 9 pars 6 birdies and 3 eagles: that's 12 under par for the round. When he finishes he looks up to the heavens and says "Oh! thank you Lord, for this wonderful round".

There is a short pause and then a booming voice comes down from the skies "Yes my son, but..... Who can you tell?"

"What are the probabilities that a criminal opportunity with zero risk of discovery would be exploited?"

someone might be tempted enough to try it, but chance of success? I'd say nil.

that's because a crime that isn't discovered isnt' a crime ^{(was an accident?)}. and a crime that is in the process of being solved *will* eventually be solved, given the time. someone wise wrote, "crime doesn't pay", and someone else said, "be sure your sin will find you out."

in short, don't even think about it.

I have had this discussion with a friend and the flaw we thought with the perfect crime would be of benefit. When the police are confronted with a crime scene they explore from two directions. Where does the evidence lead. In theory in a perfect crime the answer to this is nowhere. The other route is who benefits from this crime. I think if I had committed a perfect crime I dont think I could stand the heat of investigation and police questioning. So you need to have a crime whereby you dont obviously benefit. And that rather defeats the object of a crime!

AH. So the perfect crime is one where the Police, Judges, Legal System will not find you at fault. Example: the crime of the CEO's in depriving employees on their pension plans!!!!!!! Or the crime of CEO's firing based on age discrimination! Or the crime of CEO's and Board of Directors giving themselves hugh bonus plans and golden retirement plans at the expense of shareholders, employees and society as a whole....

All Perfect Crimes!

Good point when it comes to a "personal" crime. I was actually thinking about organized crime. They have this thing about hiding the benefit. It's called "laundering".

The whole financial sector thing looks like the perfect venue for hiding benefit. Imagine a hedge fund manager, for example. Lots of high risk stuff, chance of big returns or big losses. To hide payments for criminal services, for example, all you'd have to do (if you have a company to hide it in) would be to make "investments" that show a loss if you're making a payment, or show a big return on investment, to hide a payment you received. It all would look aboveboard and would be hard to trace, because there's so little regulation on those sort of companies (I'm only saying that as hearsay, I really don't know anything about hedge funds. May the bean counters step forward and correct my errors. As I know they are pure as snow, while I myself am clearly paranoid.)

Get the Enron smartest guys in the room dvd video.

http://www.amazon.com/Enron-Smartest-Guys-Room/dp/B000C3L2IO

Aside from some cheap innuendo regarding president bush, it does a great job of explaining exactly how this stuff works. But the fact that it exists proves others' points that the perfect crime does not remain undiscovered forever.

milo

If you are looking for an excuse, i.e. someone haddda doit, you'll not get it from here. If you want that you'll need to go into politics.

My thought is as reward goes up consideration of risk goes down. If reward is high enough the crime will be committed even if the crime will ultimately be found out. Some of the criminal element would prefer to live like a prince for a month than like a rat for life. Plus opportunity has to be presented or no crime can exist. My proposed equation is:

P = reward^2/risk*opportunity where opportunity can take the values 0 and 1.

nice insights there. GA.

P = reward^2/risk*opportunity where opportunity can take the values 0 and 1.

Difficult to solve when opportunity = 0

No such animal!

By definition, the perfect crime means just that - no chance of ever being discovered nor even suspected of happening in the first place. Even if it is revealed years later, then it is no longer the perfect crime, just, at most, an unusual crime, and very few of those exist.

As the bard said, "There is nothing new under the sun."

Ken Leigh

Don't fool yourselves. There is no such thing as a 'perfect crime'. Yeah you can get away with stuff by hiding - in a gross sense. But there's karma & eternity (God?) to deal with & you are not smart enough to know what's up in that respect. So forget about it. Your friend (for now) Carlos

It all goes back to the integrity of the individual. My dad taught me a long time ago that being ethical is doing the right thing when nobody is looking. And I have a quote on my website: "Integrity counts. If a business associate will cheat on his wife, you're next." Or like the guy who asks a girl if she will sleep with him for 10 million dollars, and she says "of course". He then says "well how about fifty dollars?" She replies "What do you think I am?" His answer: "My dear, we have already determined that, all we are doing now is haggling over price."

the "perfect crime" means a crime that can be committed without fear of being caught.

Possible if one has no conscience...

ethics, integrity, conscience... we forgot to consider an equation for motive.

I think it's fair to assume that most people - and even most corporations - would not consider committing a crime, as long as the objective can be attained legally. Other than professional criminals, most people/corporations would have a lot to lose by risking a crime - career, status, reputation, $$, the lot. If there's legal opportunity, why take any risk whatsoever of being involved in crime.

So an assessment of motive is important, and would have to consider (1) the opportunity or degree of difficulty of attaining the goal without committing a crime and (2) the importance of the goal/ item to be gained (for corporations, financial value is key, but for humans there are other values as well that might enter in).

I'm thinking, the more difficult it is to attain something of high importance by legal channels, the greater the motive and probability that criminal avenues and opportunities would be pursued.

So, equation wizards, how do we mathematize these aspects of motive?

Have you not seen the, Banks use of the funds from or President's 'bailout'? A perfect crime backed up by a President's approval.

A crime - oh yes!

I have had bonus of as much as $1500.00 after the company made a million dollar profit!

I wish I was running a bank that lost so much money that the US government felt they had to bail me out and the bank was so graceful the would give me a $300,000,000 USD bonus just to keep me around! (after putting the bank in a bankrupt position!).

I just use Auto Cad, write procedures and try pacify rate customers!!!

The perfect crime happens everyday under every president, congress, and senate!

I vote YES!

I read somewhere, that there's 100% probability that a "perfect crime" with opportunity to profit will be committed

yes and it has happened more than once and because it's perfect you don't know about it. If the person who committed it was a psycopath then their conscience would not bother them. But crimes aren't perfect because there is a victim. Someone will feel bad.

A crime is, by definition, an act that contravenes a law. Thus the acts of the bankers and the lawmakers are not crimes, although I am sure most people would consider those act illegal. They certainly contravene "natural justice".

Any crime, seen to be without risk, will in time be committed. The risk is perceptual (as per the equations above) so it follows that when a criminal sees an opportunity that he considers a perfect crime he will take that opportunity. As with the Oscar Wilde quote, we are all criminals, it just depends on the price.

Regards

Chas

IMO, the "perfect crime" is an oxymoron.

for it to be "perfect" it has to be undetected. now even the illustrations given by other posters about corporate crimes, political crimes, crimes done by those wielding great power, are far from being perfect because (at least a few) people have known them. it is impossible to steal any huge amount without it disturbing the financial picture. bean counters will happily prove that. we've even heard the story about the bank programmer who programmed the bank's system to filter decimal amounts from clients' accounts into his own, but he still got caught! where there is a system, there will be methods of detecting an aberration.

a crime, on the other hand, gets classified as such because it has been detected!

therefore, the definition of a "perfect crime" as meaning "a crime that can be committed without fear of being caught" is quite faulty. and even with trying to render its meaning correctly, would result to a fallacy.

In Canada, there are literally thousands of disappearances which go unreported, un-investigated, or are just hushed up. Normally these are of prostitutes, natives, or run aways. The "Highway of Tears" is a national disgrace. Then there are parental kidnappings, and baby snatching. There are plenty of other examples...dumpsters with babies in them and no mother to be found come to mind. At least the horrid legacy of illegal abortionists has been mostly alliviated, though back in the early parts of the last century, they left thousands bleeding out in back rooms all over Canada. Few were ever brought to justice.

http://www.pregnantpause.org/safe/deaths.htm

http://www.unsolvedcanada.ca/

ANY of these crimes can be considered "perfect" by any definition of the word.

And Canada is normally considered to be a fairly "safe" country.

Obviously murder is the big one, but there are plenty of smaller crimes, albeit not so small if one is the victim. The organization "Victims of Violence" are perennially aghast at the lack of resources to solve even "rape", "incest", "pedophilia" or "cyberstalking". The vast majority of those who perpetrate these crimes are not caught on the first offence, or even on the second. If they had stopped after one "incident", we would have a "perfect crime".

http://www.victimsofviolence.on.ca/rev2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=341&Itemid=31

Smoking a reefer or rolling through a stop sign is not a crime. Maybe a misdemeanor, but NOT a crime. And comparing a rolling stop to a cyberstalking incident doesn't help matters. Misdemeanors are not "gateways" to criminal behaviour.

If it can be done then a really smart Engineer. We know how to design dangerous things and get away with stuff. I like to tell people "Never mess (....) with an Electronic/Computer Engineer" and I have gotten away with stuff.