ABSTRACT
Most of these constitutional protections involve tradeoffs, including the balance between preserving freedom of speech and allowing harmful ideas to be communicated; between arming victims and arming criminals; between protecting against crime and invading individual privacy; and between punishing the guilty and punishing the innocent. Therefore, issues related to constitutional safeguards of individual rights are actually in the realm of economics, a science uniquely suited to the study of decisions involving tradeoffs between benefits and costs.
