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Basic economic tools of supply and demand, rationality, opportunity cost and constrained optimisation will be used and developed as needed to provide insight into understanding the behaviour of criminals. We show how by the economic approach to crime can address policy choices faced by lawmakers and policy-makers, such as the choice of where to place scarce resources to fight crime (community policing, restorative justice, early intervention, drug treatment, more guards vs. more punishment, etc.) and how to determine which of the alternative policies work in practice. We will pose many questions in this course, and outline how to approach the answers. Understanding and preventing crime requires a multidisciplinary approach - in this course we are focusing on developing the insights of economics. If you take other courses in human justice or elsewhere, hopefully what you have learned in this class can help you understand various problems.
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