This chapter elaborates the operation of criminal liability by closely considering efficient crimes and the law’s stance toward them, shows how its commitment to proportional punishment prevents the probability scaling that systemically efficient allocation requires, and discusses the procedures that determine the actual liability prices imposed on offenders. Efficient crimes are effectively encouraged by proportional punishment, and their nature and implications are examined. But proportional punishment precludes probability scaling, and induces far more than the systemically efficient number of crimes. Liability prices that match the specific costs imposed by the offender at bar are sought through a two-stage procedure of legislative determination of punishment ranges ex ante and judicial determination of exact prices ex post, which creates a dilemma: whether to price crimes accurately in the past or deter them accurately in the future. An illustrative Supreme Court case bringing all these themes together is discussed in conclusion.
