Handbook on the Economics of Crime
Bruce L. Benson, Paul R. Zimmerman - Edward Elgar, 2010
While
few economists analyzed criminal behaviour and the criminal justice
process before Gary Becker's seminal 1968 paper, an enormous body of
economic research on crime has since been produced. This insightful and
comprehensive Handbook reviews and extends much of this important
resulting research. The Handbook on the Economics of Crime provides
cutting-edge and specially commissioned contributions dealing with
theoretical and empirical modeling of criminal choice and behavior,
including Isaac Ehrlich's exposition of what he labels the 'market, or
equilibrium, model of crime'. The public production and allocation of
various criminal justice services is also examined, as are significant
components of the costs and consequences of crime. Finally, current
debates and controversies in the economics of crime literature are
considered, with the expert contributors offering suggestions and
guidance for future research. With a broad set of crime-related topics
examined from an economic perspective, this extensive Handbook will be
welcomed by academic researchers and graduate students of the economics
of crime and criminology as well as legal scholars focusing on criminal
law.
