Ransom Kidnapping

The practice of kidnapping for ransom, a pred- atory crime carried out mostly by criminal organizations, is a salient phenomenon in many regions of the world. It causes serious harm not only to victims and their families but also to private and social capital. As a paradigmatic rational crime involving negotiations, the incentives to commit the crime and the way it ends change with the probability severity of punishment, the kidnapper’s willingness to kill the hostage, and the value of the hostage life from the point of view of the family. Limiting the family’s ability to pay reduces the frequency of the offense but opens the possibility of unintended conse- quences in terms of fatalities and duration of abduction.