Deeply rooted historical patterns allow us to make a corre­lation between imprisonment and unemployment and the mar­ginalization of blacks. This paper examines the interrelationships among criminal activity, punishment, and cycles of the economic system based on the influence of political and...

Ann Dryden Witte [1980] has recently argued in this Journal that new support is found for the deterrent hypothesis (or the "economic model of crime") when individual data are employed to estimate the determinants of rearrest rates. Witte estimates a conventional economic model of crime using a...

Of the many functions of punishment in a democratic society, consider two extremes: punishment as a means of controlling crime, and punishment as a means of just deserts. The former is concerned with altering the behavior of individual criminals so as to achieve the desired social end of lower...

The law concerning racial discrimination in punishment has never been established clearly in legislation. Instead, through a series of court decisions, a constitutional basis for challenging alleged discriminatory punishment has evolved. In that evolution, the issue of substance has turned out...

Ann Dryden Witte [1980] has recently argued in this Journal that new support is found for the deterrent hypothesis (or the "economic model of crime") when individual data are employed to estimate the determinants of rearrest rates. Witte estimates a conventional economic model of crime using a...