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The Market For Criminal Justice: Federalism, Crime Control And Jurisdictional Competition, Doron Teichman
The Market For Criminal Justice: Federalism, Crime Control And Jurisdictional Competition, Doron Teichman
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
For the most part, the United States has a decentralized criminal justice system. State legislatures define the majority of crimes and set out the punishments for those crimes. In addition, the enforcement of criminal laws lies, in most cases, in the hands of local law enforcement agencies. This article points out how this decentralized structure drives local jurisdictions to harshen their criminal justice system in order to displace crime to neighboring jurisdictions. More precisely, local jurisdictions can attempt to displace crime in two distinct ways. First, they can raise the expected sanction to a level that is higher than that …