In light of mass imprisonment in the United States and the rise of surveillance technologies and private security industries all over the world, the penal paradigm according to which crime is produced by social causes and the delinquent is capable of rehabilitation has now been discredited. The economics of crime are characterized by a conception of crime as an objective nuisance and a conception of the criminal as a rational actor. Today, two influential criminologies in both the United Kingdom and the United States are identified. First, the conservative criminologies that advocate the hardening of penal repression in an attempt to deter criminals, and second, the criminologies of everyday life that focus on the daily routines that minimize the probability of criminal events. These criminologies share with neoclassical analysis the same rational choice framework. This article shows the key role played by ideas in the making of penal policies.