Ann Dryden Witte [1980] has recently argued in this Journal that new support is found for the deterrent hypothesis (or the "economic model of crime") when individual data are employed to estimate the determinants of rearrest rates. Witte estimates a conventional economic model of crime using a...

Of the many functions of punishment in a democratic society, consider two extremes: punishment as a means of controlling crime, and punishment as a means of just deserts. The former is concerned with altering the behavior of individual criminals so as to achieve the desired social end of lower...

Ann Dryden Witte [1980] has recently argued in this Journal that new support is found for the deterrent hypothesis (or the "economic model of crime") when individual data are employed to estimate the determinants of rearrest rates. Witte estimates a conventional economic model of crime using a...

Crime supply functions are reestimated in this paper using data corrected for victim underreporting. It is found in both a mean — variance specification and a conventional crime supply function, which includes measures of the offender’s gains and losses involved in property crimes, that...

In 1972, nearly $1.9 billion was spent by the federal government on the criminal justice system. This included amounts spent for police protection, courts, corrections, and law enforcement assistance. By 1977, this amount had risen to $3.6 billion. Indeed, in the United States a national war on...

This paper explores the economic aspects of participation in illegitimate activities in urban ghetto areas. The motivation for examining economic issues underlying ghetto crime and at the same time ignoring other important components of the interlocking mechanisms generating crime stems from a...