5. Solutions to the Prisoner’s Dilemma The previous part of the chapter elaborated a bit about how the prisoner’s dilemma can be solved in cartels. This chapter goes deeper into further solutions for the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory in general. These solutions include repeating the games, enforcing penalties and rewards and includes how players can make strategic moves to solve the dilemma. 5.1. Repetition 5.1.1. Repeated Games Overview So far, we have seen how cooperation between two prisoners can increase both of their profits, but this cooperation is not likely to happen if the game is only played once. However, if the players know that the game is going to be repeated, cooperation is more likely. Although some prisoners may only have to face the decision of whether to confess or deny (or maybe cooperate or defect) only once, most of the other real life prisoner dilemmas include firms having to face these decisions of cooperating and defecting over and over again, and in this case of “repeated games”, the dilemma becomes more complicated because how you choose to act as a firm affects how the other firm acts in the coming games. And so in this case, every firm considers the fact that only one instance of defecting might cause the other firm to defect as well which results in the collapse of cooperation in the future. And if the value of future cooperation exceeds the value of defecting now, then both firms will be implicitly compelled to keep choosing to cooperate. (Dixit, et.al 2009: 399, 400; Salvatore, 2007: 425) Suppose you are player 1 in the prisoner’s dilemma and that you and player 2 understand that of you both charge a higher price (as in cooperate with each other), then you will both get a higher value than if b... ... middle of paper ... ...w it can be a solution, let’s go back to the example mentioned in third chapter of the husband and the wife and the cost of penalty to the player that defects. If one of the players does not cooperate, they get 1 year in prison and the other player that cooperates 25 years in prison. But suppose that upon leaving the prison after 1 year, the defector gets beat up by the friends of the prisoner that cooperated, and this physical penalty ends up being the same as 20 years in prison. So by adjusting the payoffs as illustrated in the payoff matrix shown in Figure 5.1, the payoff of the defector would be 21 years instead of 1 year and the payoff of the cooperator remains 25 years. In this case, the game changes completely and the prisoner’s dilemma is now a game of assurance, where none of the players have dominant strategies anymore but both find it best to cooperate.
Summary of the Case: In 2008 public schools in the Atlanta area boasted high gains over previous year’s test scores. These gains, that were significant enough to stand out, were investigated in 2009 by the state of Georgia and found to be the result of cheating in at least 40 schools. During the investigations, it was found that Superintendent Hall and others had created a difficult working environment through either fear and retaliation or pay raises, bonuses and promotions. It was found that cheating, including erasing incorrect answers and instructing students to change answers, was permitted at all levels. These investigations led to the indictment of 35 Atlanta Public School (APS) employees, in March of
Companies such as Corrections Corporation of America & GEO Group are selling their services as a worry-free solution to dealing with the incarcerated population, while saving money in the process. Some of the tactics private prisons use to save money are understaffing, not training staff, lax security measures and even allowing cable TV versus hiring more guards. These tactics do not work, as researchers from the U.S. General Accounting Office show “no substantial evidence” was found in proving that for-profit prisons conserve taxpayer dollars. In Arizona, prisons were privatized with one stipulation; it must save money. The state’s own data contradicted the idea, with the per-inmate cost in private prisons as high as sixteen-hundred dollars greater per diem, or three and a half m...
Private prisons in the United States, came about in the early 1980s when the war on drugs resulted in a mass wave of inmates, which led to the lack of the prison system’s ability to hold a vast number of inmates. When the cost became too much for the government to handle, private sectors sought this as an opportunity to expand their businesses through the prison industry. Since the opening of private prisons, the number of prisons and inmates it can hold has grown over the last two decades. With the rising number of inmates, profits have also substantially grown along with the number of investors. But what eventually became a problem amongst the private prison industry was their “cost-saving” strategies, which have been in constant debate ever
The saying, crime does not pay, probably held more significance a century ago when the judicial system and prison officials focused on the idea that severe punishment was the best deterrent to crime. Punishment in prisons was more than just loss of freedom, it involved chain gangs, hard-labor, the hole, and other inhumane treatment designed to ward off the would be criminals and beat the current criminals into submission. Today, Jeremy Bentham’s theory that punishment must outweigh the benefits of crime is addressed only through loss of freedoms. Prison...
15 men participated in The BBC Prison Study. At the beginning of the experiment there was a possibility for the prisoners to be promoted to guards, therefore, prisoners did not identify with their group. After 3 days, prisoners started to work together, they noticed that guards could not agree on decisions and prisoners overthrown guards. Guard groups had a deviant – the over-disciplined guard. Then everyone came up with an idea of equality, but that did not work either and the experiment was stopped. This experiment’s conclusions differ from Stanford’s Experiment and therefore it opened up a discussion once
Kicenski, Karyl L. The Corporate Prison: The Production of Crime and The Sale of Discipline, 1998 (Internet:http://speech.csun.edu/ben/news/kessay.html)
Nielsen’s next major premise is that if a consequentialist is faced with a decision from which the overall value of the consequences is unclear, then consequentialism should yield to the relevant deontological rule. That is to say, if it is possible that violating a deontological rule to bring about greater good may l...
The goals of punishment that are most important in this case are retribution, individual deterrence and rehabilitation. Retribution would be one of the goals, since a person died through the fault of another and getting justice or vengeance could be an important factor for family and friends of the victim. Individual deterrence is an important goal for this case since the offender needs to be prevented from committing similar crimes. Lastly rehabilitation could be an important factor in order to rehabilitate the offender and make them less dangerous to other individuals for the chance of their release. The best sentence that would serve these goals is incarceration. Through incarceration of this individual some sort of retribution would be achieved and it would deter the individual from further crimes. Further depending on the programs offered the individual could move towards rehabilitation.
During the Summer of 1971, an experiment was conducted by Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. This experiment is known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. It put students in the roles of either the prisoner or the guard which then measured how these students acted in their assigned characters. It was a simulation of how prison life would be during that time. As the experiment continued, there was an increase in the level of aggression from the prisoners which caused more dominance by the guards. The main research question in this experiment was, what happens when you put good people into an evil place? Does humankind win over evil, or does evil succeed? The findings showed that young men suffered, both verbally and physically. The prisoners
The old adage of “eye for an eye” has defined the way societies across the world approach crime and punishment ever since the age of Hammurabi. Prisons in particular are designed to punish people who disobey laws, and return them to society as upstanding citizens. However, 75% of people released from prisons in the United States are re-arrested within five years of release (Goldstein, 2014). The fundamental problem with prisons is that they fail to address the economic and social circumstances that make crime the choice of highest utility, emotionally rehabilitate the criminals or dissuade people from committing crime; in fact, they return convicts to those exact circumstances or worse, in the same psychological circumstances or worse.
In the United States, there are about 500 prisoners for every 100,000 residents. So, it is no surprise that our country has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In my opinion, this statistic would be lower if the prisons were tougher, making the prisoners scared to come back. The punishments used in our country’s prisons today are far more lenient than they used to be. In this paper, I will discuss what prison should be like, the goals of prison, and the differences between two American prison models (Pennsylvania and Auburn) and their benefits and drawbacks. This paper will also explain which model was more successful and why.
One of the main arguments in the support of private prisons is that they “cut the cost” of public prisons, but this price cut can only be achieved by paying all the employees significantly less than what they deserve.
There are two forms of Utilitarianism namely Act utilitarianism and Rule utilitarianism, the former being applied on a case-by-case basis and the latter by a utility of rules (Shaw, 2011:55). Act Utilitarianism is directly applied to each alternate act, and the right act is the one which consequences do more good than harm to those affected, directly or indirectly, by this act (Utilitarian Theories, 2002). In the case of the Million-Dollar Decision, we are applying Act utilitarianism: we will measure up the consequences of the decision that Tom Oswaldt (“Oswaldt”) has to make of whether he should or should not “bribe” the Chinese officials to get business, then we will weigh up the consequences and see which action “maximises the total well-being” (Bykvist, 2010:78).
We have been taught that we should always follow our priorities, whether it is dealing with jobs, families, education, or faith. Ethical egoism teaches us that if our interests are any one these or something else, we should put it first because these are our values. But how far should we go in protecting our values? Is there a limit of how they should be protected? Am I doing what’s best for my priorities or for me? Although we should protect our values, there needs to be a limit and a focus of how I should protect my values with the best intentions. The film, Prisoners, presents this moral dilemma of torture through the characters’ decisions and emotions.
Hostage and barricade incidents are amongst the most difficult, emotional, and sometimes potentially lethal situations that a negotiator can be involved in. Often, the hostage taker shows signs of mental illness, drug or alcohol intoxication, or personal disputes accompanied by a high level of emotion. (Feldmann) These contributing factors lead to impulsive and often unpredictable behavior on the part of the hostage taker. It is sometimes impossible for negotiators to anticipate possible outcomes and complications that could arise from these incidents. Negotiators use a wide variety of tools, information, and strategies to try and resolve whatever grievances and demands the perpetrator is exhibiting. The main focus on the part of the negotiator is to keep the hostage alive, then try to negotiate a surrender. There is a considerable risk to both the victims and law enforcement when dealing with a hostage situation. (Feldmann) This paper will identify and distinguish several high risk factors that negotiators and law enforcement use to extinguish potentially lethal situations. The presence or absence of these factors can influence the outcome of a situation for the better or for the worst. Second, this paper will identify several motivations for hostage taking. Why and what would prompt an individual to take hostages? Several influential and background reasons will be examined. Finally, some successful and also failed negotiations will be explored, with possible reasons and explanations to what factors made them either a success or a failure.