Do legal origins affect cross-country incarceration rates?

We aim to explain how legal origins shape outcomes for criminal punishment. * Incarceration as a means of social control varies tremendously across countries. * Legal origins alter the relative costs and benefits associated with imprisonment. * Countries with civil legal origins have lower prison populations. * Bureaucracy is a cheaper alternative to imprisonment in civil law countries. Prison populations vary tremendously across countries. This paper investigates the potential relationship between incarceration rates and legal origins in a large cross-section of countries. We argue that legal... Mehr ...