This entry for the forthcoming The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (Second Edition) surveys the economic analysis of public enforcement of law - the use of public agents (inspectors, tax auditors, police, prosecutors) to detect and to sanction violators of legal rules. We first discuss the...

The prison time actually served by a convicted criminal depends to a significant degree on decisions made by the state during the course of imprisonment — on whether to grant parole or other forms of sentence reduction. In this article we study a model of the adjustment of sentences assuming...

This article studies the implications for the theory of deterrence of (a) the manner in" which individuals' disutility from imprisonment varies with the length of the imprisonment" term; and (b) discounting of the future disutility and future public costs of imprisonment. Two" questions are...

The prison time actually served by a convicted criminal depends to a significant degree on decisions made by the state during the course of imprisonment—on whether to grant parole or other forms of sentence reduction. In this article we study a model of the adjustment of sentences assuming...