In diesem Beitrag wird gezeigt, daß der Einwand, Straftäter würden in der ökonomischen konsequentialistischen Straftheorie in einer gegen die Menschenwürde verstoßenden Weise instrumentalisiert, nicht zutrifft. Entgegen Kant wird argumentiert, daß vernunftbegabte Wesen wie etwa der homo...

Broken Windows: the metaphor has changed New York and Los Angeles. Yet it is far from undisputed whether the broken windows policy was causal for reducing crime. In a series of lab experiments we show that first impressions are indeed causal for cooperativeness in three different institutional...

Based on a theoretical framework on informal, custodial and non-custodial sentencing, the paper provides econometric tests on the effectiveness of police, public prosecution and courts. Using a unique dataset covering German states for the period 19772001, a comprehensive system of criminal...

The most famous element in Bentham's theory of punishment, the Panopticon Prison, expresses his view of the two purposes of punishment, deterrence and special prevention. We investigate Bentham's intuition in a public goods lab experiment by manipulating how much information on punishment...

In 2007, the Wall Street Journal published an article claiming that each execution saves more than 70 lives. This example is used to show how easy it is, using simple or advanced econometric techniques, to produce results that do or do not support the deterrence hypothesis. Moreover, we also...

This paper tests predictions of a structural, augmented supply-of-offenders model regarding the relative effects of police, public prosecution and courts, respectively, on crime. Using detailed data on the different stages of the criminal prosecution process in Germany, empirical evidence...

In this paper, we analyze the effect of the criminal justice system on juvenile recidivism. Using a unique sample of German inmates, we are able to disentangle the selection into criminal and juvenile law from the subsequent recidivism decision of the inmate. We base our identification strategy...

Based on a theoretical framework on informal, custodial and non-custodial sentencing, the paper provides econometric tests on the effectiveness of police, public prosecution and courts. Using a unique dataset covering German states for the period 19772001, a comprehensive system of criminal...

Broken Windows: the metaphor has changed New York and Los Angeles. Yet it is far from undisputed whether the broken windows policy was causal for reducing crime. In a series of lab experiments we show that first impressions are indeed causal for cooperativeness in three different institutional...

Does probation pay a double dividend? Society saves the cost of incarceration, and convicts preserve their liberty. But does probation also reduce the risk of recidivism? In a meta-study we show that the field evidence is inconclusive. Moreover it struggles with an identification problem: those...