Handbook on the Economics of Crime

Book excerpt: 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.