.S. natives to commit crimes and that they pose a threat to public safety. There is little evidence to support these claims. In …

subsidize commitments to prison—the fee-for-service model of doing “something”—without tying any of these subsidies to outcomes … obtained in prison. This means prison is paid for even if it is neither effective nor efficient. An outcome-oriented, pay …

prison. Rewarding good behavior reduces the state's cost of operating prisons. But rewarding good behavior also tends to …

In this article we derive the mix of criminal sanctions—choosing among prison, parole, and probation—that achieves any … target level of deterrence at least cost. We assume that prison has higher disutility and higher cost per unit time than … these differential discount rates. This advantage implies that (a) whenever a sentence includes both a prison term and a …