Cities paying criminals not to kill

It's a sociological question. Someone who is working within a different moral or ethical framework than you or I are is not doing the same internal cost / benefit analysis that we are. There is nothing irrational about their behavior. They are simply a product of a different set of circumstances than the majority of people who weigh those same costs and benefits and make a different set of decisions. Is a schizophrenic who commits a violent crime being irrational?

This is where economics unfairly gets a bad name. Most of economics itself is observation of pretty concrete things -- or at least theories that try to surround concrete phenomenon. When you mix sociology in -- for example, crap sociological experiments based on work like Beckers' -- you take it into a whole different realm. Unfortunately, though, economics gets a bad rap for it when it is really a sociology matter .