Do criminals maximise money? Are criminals more or less selfish than the average subject? Can prisons apply measures that reduce the degree of selfishness of their inmates? Using a tried and tested tool from experimental economics, we cast new light on these old criminological questions. In a...

We conducted an experiment with 182 inmates from a maximum security prison to analyze the impact of criminal identity salience on cheating. The results show that inmates cheat more when we exogenously render their criminal identity more salient. This effect is specific to individuals who have a...

We conducted an experiment with 182 inmates from a maximum security prison to analyze the impact of criminal identity salience on cheating. The results show that inmates cheat more when we exogenously render their criminal identity more salient. This effect is specific to individuals who have a...

For a rational choice theorist, the absence of crime is more difficult to explain than its presence. Arguably, the expected value of criminal sanctions, i.e. the product of severity times certainty, is often below the expected benefit. We rely on a standard theory from behavioral economics,...

This paper estimates the effect of a rehabilitative punishment on the post-release outcomes of juvenile criminals using a unique Finnish data set on sentences and punishments merged with the longitudinal population census for 1990-2007. The rehabilitative program was aimed at improving the...

Does the death penalty save lives? A surge of recent interest in this question has yielded a series of papers purporting to show robust and precise estimates of a substantial deterrent effect of capital punishment. We assess the various approaches that have been used in this literature, testing...

For a rational choice theorist, the absence of crime is more difficult to explain than its presence. Arguably, the expected value of criminal sanctions, i.e. the product of severity times certainty, is often below the expected benefit. We rely on a standard theory from behavioral economics,...

We describe the evolution of selective aspects of punishment in the United States over the period 1980–2004. We note that imprisonment increased around 1980, a period that coincides with the ‘‘Reagan revolution'' in economic matters. We build an economic model where beliefs about economic...

This paper analyses the effects of two recent reforms introduced in Italy since 2010 in an attempt to reduce prison overcrowding. The first, introduced by the law no. 199 of 2010 on home detention for prisoners with final conviction. The second, passed by the decree law no. 211 of 2011 on home...

The Federal criminal sentencing guidelines struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 required that males and females who commit the same crime and have the same prior criminal record be sentenced equally. Using data obtained from the United States Sentencing Commission's records, we examine...