Crime and Punishment: economics of crime and the psychological approaches of learning

Abstract

This article discusses how the learning theme, from a psychological perspective, is incorporated into the studies of Crime and Economics. Initially, a brief presentation of the two main psychological learning approaches, behaviorist and cognitive, is made. In the sequence, we deal with the problem of learning in Criminology and analyze how another area of knowledge, Sociology, addresses the topic. Later, we review studies from an Economic Theory of Crime perspective that enables learning. Thus, we discuss the limitations that deductive methods, usually used in neoclassical economics, impose on the study of learning in the context of criminal decision-making.