Two real-world observations are not easily replicated in models of crime. First, although capital punishment is optimal in Becker’s (1968) model, it is rarely observed in the real world. Second, criminal procedure and the evaluation of evidence vary across societies and historical periods, the...

An intertemporal general equilibrium model of criminal behavior is used to analyze the effect on crime of changing policy parameters. The policy parameters are the length of the prison term, the severity of punishment, and the amount of police resources. The number of crimes in society can be...