Markets for Crime and Markets for Punishment

Abstract

Victorian philosophers confidently predicted that vice and crime would fade away as the human species evolved. That doesn’t seem to be happening. For example, the State of California used to spend twice as much on universities as on prisons, but now, despite a record number of students, it spends far more on prisons. The War on Drugs, which costs U.S. taxpayers about $40 billion each year, has been about as effective as Caligula’s war against the sea.