Definition
Criminal constitutions exist in a number of different criminal enterprises, from the Golden Age of Pirates to modern prison and street gangs. The purpose of these constitutions is to better facilitate cooperation among organizational members in order to help better achieve profit maximization.
Criminal Constitutions
It is easy to imagine criminal organizations being composed of lawless, all out for their own chaotic individuals but this is far from the truth. From an economic perspective, especially since Gary Becker’s famous 1968 publication, Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach, the starting point for analyzing criminal behavior is to assume that criminals are rational agents. From this perspective, it is not surprising to find that many black markets and other criminal organizations are extremely orderly and rational. This is, of course, not to say that they are desirable or morally good but if we are to truly understand criminal organization it is important to...
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References
Becker GS (1968) Crime and punishment: an economic approach. J Polit Econ 76(2):169–217
Engelmann L (1979) Intemperance: the lost war against liquor. Free Press, New York
Jankowski MS (1991) Islands in the street: gangs and American Urban Society. University of California Press, Berkeley
Leeson PT (2009) The invisible hook: the hidden economics of pirates. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Leeson PT, Skarbek D (2010) Criminal constitutions. Glob Crime 11(3):279–298
Skarbek D (2014) The social order of the underworld: how prison gangs govern the American penal system. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Further Reading
McCarthy DMP (2011) An economic history of organized crime: a national and transnational approach. Routledge, New York
Reuter P (1985) The organization of illegal markets: an economic analysis. U.S. Department of Justice: National Institute of Justice, Washington, DC
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Snow, N.A. (2019). Criminal Constitutions. In: Marciano, A., Ramello, G.B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7753-2_15
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