Scientific Definition
Trial penalties pressure even innocent defendants to plead guilty to avoid risk.
Plain-English Definition
Trial penalties pressure even innocent defendants to plead guilty to avoid risk.
Feynman Explanation
The 'choice' is between a known small sentence and an unknown large one.
Core Principle
Trial penalties pressure even innocent defendants to plead guilty to avoid risk.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Trial penalties pressure even innocent defendants to plead guilty to avoid risk.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Process design produces outcomes the law never voted for.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The 'choice' is between a known small sentence and an unknown large one.
Examples
- ~95% of U.S. criminal cases resolved by plea, not trial.
- Process design produces outcomes the law never voted for.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Trial-penalty caps. Plea-rate transparency.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Trial-penalty caps. Plea-rate transparency.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
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Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Charging by time rewards inefficiency and prolongs disputes.
Police agencies that keep seized assets gain a direct fiscal interest in seizures.
Fixed compliance costs scale punitively for small firms and entrench large ones.
Compliance programs designed to satisfy regulators, not prevent harm.
Stacking fines on low-income defendants creates debt traps and recidivism.
Decisions made to be defensible, not to be right.
Mandatory federal sourcing from prison factories crowds out small business and entrenches inefficient production.
Contingency-fee structures shape which cases get filed.
Fixed sentencing rules remove judicial discretion and inflate incarceration without reducing crime.
Per-inmate funding makes incarceration a budgetary asset for jurisdictions and contractors.
Caseloads far above professional norms guarantee weak defense for the poor.
Confidential settlements buy silence and prevent precedent that would deter future harm.