An optimal penalty model of anti-medical violence legislation / 中华医院管理杂志

ABSTRACT

From the perspective of law-and-economics, this paper analyzed the characteristics between medical workplace and other workplace in terms of public safety liability, risk identifiability and preventability. Then it went on to explore the costs structure incurred by medical violence, namely personal costs of victims, public safety cost, risk prevention cost and service supply cost. A law-and-economics optimal penalty model is then developed based on the benchmark of crime of violence free of social cost, and by incorporating the social cost of medical violence. And it is found that an upward deflection of the crime cost curve sharply drives up the optimal penalty corresponding to various levels of violence, and lowers the threshold violence constituting criminal offence, thus balancing the social costs borne by the public for medical violence.