Prevention of Crime and the Optimal Standard of Proof in Criminal Law

Henrik Lando

Review of Law & Economics, 2009, vol. 5, issue 1, 33-52

Abstract: This article determines the optimal standard of proof in criminal law in a trade-off between three costs: the injustice cost of wrong convictions, the injustice cost of wrong acquittals, and the cost to society of the criminal act itself. The standard of proof affects the level of crime through its impact on deterrence. The article applies the expresssion for the optimal standard to the crime of sexual violation against women. While the result must be interpreted with caution, the analysis indicates that for this crime the concern for prevention may have a significant effect on the optimal standard of proof. (JEL K14, K40, K42).

Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2202/1555-5879.1237 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:rlecon:v:5:y:2009:i:1:n:2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/rle/html

DOI: 10.2202/1555-5879.1237

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Law & Economics is currently edited by Francesco Parisi

More articles in Review of Law & Economics from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().