Criminal Justice System Vs Economic Analysis

It is clear that there is a "correlation" between economics and the implementation of the justice system. The fundamental aim of the economic analysis of criminal law is to "determine conditions for optimal economic situations," which is achieved in practice by developing and implementing an efficient criminal justice system. The two main benchmarks to measure the efficiency of the justice system is to reach an optimal level of crime, as well as achieving utility maximisation by minimising the cost of crime and its prevention. Despite the justice system occasionally failing to achieve efficiency at first, the use of a successful feedback loop allows the government to amend issues, which disproves the unconvincing argument that the economic …show more content…
The demarcation between criminal and tort law is inherently economic; acts are prosecuted in a civil system up to the point that they reach "solvency limitation," that is, when it is no longer economically viable. Criminal acts bypass efficient market transactions which cause "enormous social costs," which is evident in acquisitive offences such as burglary as well as implicit markets such as the market for love that can manifest to rape. Tort law cannot effectively deter criminals from committing said acts since the optimal damages, measured through the Hand formula, would frequently exceed the criminal's ability to pay, which necessitates the existence of a public enforcement system. Bowles puts forward a convincing argument when he says that "from an economic perspective, some activities can only be deterred by using the criminal …show more content…
This again underlines the state's ability to redress inefficiencies in the criminal justice