Crime, Criminal Justice, and Economics: Phillips & Votey, Schmidt & Witte

Is criminal behavior economically rational? Can we analyze criminal justice institutions in the same way that economists analyze the production and business decisions of private firms? What is the best mix of spending on police, courts, prisons, and social programs to achieve crime control? How much crime control is enough-what are the limits on public and private spending to avoid crime? Although policy analysts are now accustomed to asking such questions regarding crime and criminal justice, posing issues in this way has been central to the American debate on criminal justice only since the late 1960s, when economists began to study crime using their particular theoretical perspective and empirical techniques. Two recent volumes by economists-Llad Phillips and Harold Votey's The Economics of Crime Control and Peter Schmidt and Ann Witte's An Economic Analysis of Crime and Justice-illustrate economists' contributions to this debate and also underscore the difficulties with using the economic framework to analyze crime and recommend policy. Both books are collections of diverse work by their authors over the past decade or more. Both books also summarize the authors' assessment of economists' contributions to the study of crime. Phillips and Votey provide a