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.

Jeremy Bentham and Gary Becker established the tradition of analyzing criminal law in utilitarian and economic terms. This seminal book continues that tradition with specially commissioned, original papers that span the philosophical foundations of the use of economics in criminal law, both traditional economic perspectives and behavioral and experimental approaches to the discipline. The contributors examine and evaluate the optimal design of criminal law norms as well as the ideal structure of law enforcement institutions. They delineate what wrongs ought to be criminalized, identify the boundaries between criminal law and tort, and determine the optimal size of sanctions given the differential vulnerability of victims. They also analyze the special considerations that apply to the regulation of corporate crime, the effects of technology on crime, and the effects of the distribution of wealth on sentencing. This essential Handbook provides students and scholars of criminal law and law and economics the opportunity to explore the diversity of contemporary approaches to the economics of crime. Criminologists, sociologists and policymakers will also find it a valuable addition to their collections.

This volume brings together some of the most influential articles in the field of law and economics. Together the chapters illustrate how economic theory and rigorous empirical analysis can shed light on some of the most important issues in social science and public policy.

Wide ranging and accessible, this is the most up-to-date textbook in this area, taking current economic research and making it accessible to undergraduates and other interested readers.

Insider trading. Savings and loan scandals. Enron. Corporate crimes were once thought of as victimless offenses, but now—with billions of dollars and an increasingly global economy at stake—this is understood to be far from the truth. The International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime explores the complex interplay of factors involved when corporate cultures normalize lawbreaking, and when organizational behavior is pushed to unethical (and sometimes inhumane) limits. Featuring original contributions from a panel of experts representing North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia, this timely volume presents multidisciplinary views on recent corporate wrongdoing affecting economic and social conditions worldwide. Criminal liability and intent Stock market and financial crime Bribery and extortion Computer and identity fraud Health care fraud Crime in the professions Industrial pollution Political corruption War crimes and genocide Contributors offer case studies, historical and sociopolitical analyses, theoretical and legal perspectives, and comparative studies, featuring examples as varied as NASA, Parmalat, the Italian government, and Watergate. Criminal justice responses to these phenomena, the role of the media in exposing or minimizing them, prevention, regulation, and self- policing strategies, and larger global issues emerging from economic crime are also featured. Richly diverse in its coverage, The International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime is stimulating reading for students, academics, and professionals in a wide range of fields, from criminology and criminal justice to business and economics, psychology to social policy to ethics. This powerful information is certain to change many of our deeply held views on criminal behavior.

This handbook offers a comprehensive examination of crimes as public policy subjects to provide an authoritative overview of current knowledge about the nature, scale, and effects of diverse forms of criminal behaviour and of efforts to prevent and control them.

This title presents a survey of the crime problem in Latin America, which takes a very broad and appropriately reductionist approach to analyse the determinants of the high crime levels, focusing on the negative social conditions in the region, including inequality and poverty, and poor policy design, such as relatively low police presence. The chapters illustrate three channels through which crime might generate poverty, that is, by reducing investment, by introducing assets losses, and by reducing the value of assets remaining in the control of households.