ABSTRACT
A. Introduction From an economic perspective, a person commits a crime for the same reason that he undertakes any other action – it satisfi es a preference. Jeremy Bentham famously opined that: “[T]he profi t of the crime is the force which urges man to delinquency: the pain of the punishment is the force employed to restrain him from it. If the fi rst of these forces be the greater, the crime will be committed; if the second, the crime will not be committed.”
