ABSTRACT
This chapter applies the modern field of behavioral economics to five topics introduced in previous chapters. The first examines whether people care about the concept of efficient punishment as an approach to deterring crime. The second examines how criminals respond to expected punishment based on their preferences toward risk and ambiguity, and how these responses affect the determination of optimal punishment. The third deals with framing effects in how prison sentences are handed down and upheld, and how truth-in-sentencing laws may enhance the deterrent effect. The fourth deals with implicit racial bias by judges and possible policy responses to reducing such bias. The fifth deals with behavioral models of addiction. A distinction is made between sophisticated and naïve time-inconsistent behavior among drug users, and how these differences impact the justifications for drug control policy motivated by paternalism.
