Criminal justice decision making in social and legal context

• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Greg Pogarsky
• Date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12469

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12469

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

BEHAVIORAL ECONOMIC APPLICATIONS

Criminal justice decision making in social and legal

context

Behavioral economic applications

Greg Pogarsky

University at Albany, State Universityof New York

Correspondence

GregPogarsky, School of Criminal Justice,University at Albany, State University of New York,135 Western Avenue, Draper

Hall 219, Albany, NY 12222.

Email:gpogarsky@albany.edu

On April 19–20, 2018, the School of Criminal Justice at Albany held a symposium called “Criminal

Justice Decision Making in Social and Legal Context.” The articles in this series comprise part of the

intellectual output from that symposium. Many thanks are owed to Dean William Pridemore, whose

leadership made the symposium possible. Generous university-level support was also provided by for-

mer President Robert Jones and former Provost James Stellar. The event was timed to capitalize on

recent advancements in behavioral economics and to generate innovative thinking about crime theory

and policy. Several broad themes emerged.

First and foremost is the potential for behavioral economics to inform thinking about the nature of

crime and societal responses to it. Principles of choice are essential to a range of criminological theories

beyond rational choice. These include social control, social learning, and institutional anomie. But the

traditional economic notions of costs, benefits, and risk often applied in criminology (see Becker,

1968; McCarthy, 2002) may be outdated. Behavioral economics offers refined and more descriptively

realistic models of decision-making.

Prospect theory was formative for behavioral economics (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). The theory

updated economic notions of expected utility to account for predictable ways in which people regard

risk and probability. Thereafter, a more encompassing, dual-systems version of behavioral economics

emerged (Kahneman, 2011). System 2 includes the contemplative processes envisioned by rational

choice and prospect theories. System 1 includes intuitive, heuristic, and generally faster processes that

have been neglected until recently in offenderdecision-making research. Pogarsky and Herman (2019,

pp. 823–839) outline how the interrelationship between these types of decision processes suggests

innovative possibilities for prosocial “nudges.”

Loughran (2019, pp. 737–758) leads with an expanded perspective on offender decision-making

infused with behavioral economic principles. Thereafter Hoeben and Thomas (2019, pp. 759–784)

focus on the many social dynamics at workwhen individuals have the opportunity to offend. But issues

of agency and choice extend far beyond offenders. Various other actors exercise discretion and make

Criminology & Public Policy. 2019;18:735–736. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2019 American Society of Criminology 735