A behavioural model of crime is developed and applied to panel data on the number of crimes and clear-ups for the 53 police districts in Norway for the period 1970-78. Data on both total crime and on 12 different types of crime is employed. The model consists of behavioural relations of the...

A behavioural model of crime is developed and applied to panel data on the number of crimes and clear-ups for the 53 police districts in Norway for the period 1970-78. Data on both total crime and on 12 different types of crime is employed. The model consists of behavioural relations of the...

How does the organizational structure of law enforcement agencies affect police activity and crime? We examine the consequences of an organizational reform in Israel that transferred the responsibility for housing arrestees from the police to the prison authority. Using the staggered rollout of...

This paper starts with a review the economics of criminal behavior. Then, the authors discuss the theory of public enforcement. The economic analysis of criminal behavior and criminal law has been a hugely successful enterprise. As an academic enterprise, it has achieved the goal of research –...

In this chapter, I briefly discuss theoretical predictions of capital punishment’s impact on crime, provide a concise history of the death penalty in the US, and review both the early and recent empirical literature

Criminal sentencing policy has moved into the spotlight over the last two decades, as determinate sentencing and greater democratic oversight have brought new scrutiny to the question of how we punish. Much of the focus has been on two facts: first, that the United States incarcerates a...

At the time of his death, the works of German philosopher Friedrich W. Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) were not widely-read and he himself had slipped into a catatonic state, being put on display by his family as somewhat of a freak. By 1939, his ideas had been distorted and misappropriated to justify...

This chapter deals with the application of economic theories of criminal law to environmental pollution. The chapter starts by addressing why environmental pollution needs to be enforced at all by using the criminal law. Attention is also paid to the question whether in certain circumstances...

Decisionmakers who confront a long sequence of criminal opportunities act differently from those who confront a single opportunity. If the sequence is long enough, people will take big chances in return for very small gains, even if the probability of detection is very great and the scale of...

The main purpose of this paper is the identification of criteria that justify the choice of (costly) criminal law enforcement over administrative or tort law to address harmful activities. Specifically, using a Law and Economics approach, this paper demonstrates when and why criminal law should...