The Economics of Criminal Justice

3 units

In this course, we will use the theoretical and empirical tools of economics to study the criminal justice system. By constructing models of how arrest/prosecution/conviction/sentencing/etc. decisions are made, we will evaluate these decisions for errors and especially for bias. We will also see how economists test hypotheses about the criminal justice system using the same types of natural experiments they use to study markets. Prerequisites: Econ 1011 and SDS 2200.