R ational choice theories have advanced considerably in the social sciences, particularly in economics, political science, and law (e.g., Morrow 1994;Posner 1998;Sunstein 1999). In sociology, especially with the popularity of social capital theory, rational choice has gained traction as an individual-level theory of motivation compatible with macro-level theories of social structure (Coleman 1990). Nevertheless, skepticism in sociology persists, in part due to misconceptions, but more importantly due to questions about the explanatory power of rational choice theories. Proponents and skeptics alike agree that a fair assessment of the theory asks whether it has paid off empirically. Hechter and Kanazawa (1997) conclude that some empirical studies support rational explanations (sometimes unwittingly) in areas beyond market behavior, but that additional research is needed to examine rational choice theory in a variety of areas of social life and forms of social action.A challenging and important empirical puzzle for rational choice theory concerns the social control of criminal behavior. Crime is a difficult case for rational choice theory. In the case of street crime, behavior is typically characterized as irrational and suboptimal. This is in contrast to market behavior, financial decisions, and corporate crime, where institutionalized norms frame decision making in the terms of rationality or optimality. Indeed, the media-and some academics-commonly portray street criminals as impulsive, unthinking, and Hirschi 1990). Thus, a finding that street crimes follow rational choice principles would provide strong evidence for rational choice perspectives.and uneducated, and their behaviors as beyond the reach of formal sanctions (e.g., GottfredsonCrime is an important arena for investigating rational choice for another reason: Utilitarian principles, and their accompanying psychological assumptions, undergird our legal institution (e.g., Maestro 1973). This connection is rooted in writings of the classical school. Long ago, Bentham ([1789] 1948) argued that happiness is a composite of maximum pleasure and minimum pain, and that the utilitarian principlethe greatest happiness for the greatest number-underlies morals and legislation. For Bentham, punishment by the state constitutes one of four sanctions-political, moral, physical, and religious-that shape pleasures and pains. Beccaria ([1764] 1963), influenced by the moral philosophers of the Enlightenment, assumed that criminal laws reflect the terms of a social contract, in which members of society receive protection of their rights to personal welfare and private property in exchange for relinquishing the freedom to violate the rights of others. Those rights are protected by the state through deterrence, threatening potential transgressors with just enough punishment to outweigh the pleasures of crime. 1 Beccaria attempted to reform the unjust and brutal legal system of eighteenth-century Europe by developing a rational system that specified laws clearly and a prior...
