Given the central role of private individuals and firms in determining the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, and the quality and availability of criminal opportunities, private actions arguably deserve a central role in the analysis of crime and crime prevention policy. But the...

Jeremy Bentham and Gary Becker established the tradition of analyzing criminal law in utilitarian and economic terms. This seminal book continues that tradition with specially commissioned, original papers that span the philosophical foundations of the use of economics in criminal law, both...

Research has long identified racial differences in perceptions of criminal injustice. Given that race is confounded with neighbourhood context, it remains unclear the extent to which individual or neighbourhood attributes explain racial differences in these perceptions. This paper advances...

We assess whether black-white disparities in commitments to prison or diversions to treatment for drug offenders in California can be explained by differences in the characteristics of criminal cases and whether case characteristics are weighed differently by race. We also examine whether the...