Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

prisoner's dilemma

A logic problem - often used by law-and-economics scholars to illustrate the effect of cooperative behavior - involving two prisoners who are being separately questioned about their participation in a crime: (1) if both confess, they will each receive a 5-year sentence; (2) if neither confesses, they will each receive a 3-year sentence; and (3) if one confesses but the other does not, the confessing prisoner will receive a 1-year sentence while the silent prisoner will receive a 10-year sentence. See EXTERNALITY.