Detainers
A Generational Shift: Race and the Declining Lifetime Risk of Imprisonment
Jason Robey, Michael Massoglia & Michael Light
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
Mass incarceration fundamentally altered the life course for a generation of American men, but sustained declines in imprisonment in recent years raise questions about how incarceration is shaping current generations. This study makes three primary contributions to a fuller understanding of the contemporary landscape of incarceration in the United States. First, we assess the scope of decarceration. Between 1999 and 2019, the Black male incarceration rate dropped by 44%, and notable declines in Black male imprisonment were evident in all 50 states. Second, our life table analysis demonstrates marked declines in the lifetime risks of incarceration. For Black men, the lifetime risk of incarceration declined by nearly half from 1999 to 2019. We estimate that less than 1 in 5 Black men born in 2001 will be imprisoned, compared with 1 in 3 for the 1981 birth cohort. Third, decarceration has shifted the institutional experiences of young adulthood. In 2009, young Black men were much more likely to experience imprisonment than college graduation. Ten years later, this trend had reversed, with Black men more likely to graduate college than go to prison. Our results suggest that prison has played a smaller role in the institutional landscape for the most recent generation compared with the generation exposed to the peak of mass incarceration.
From defunding to refunding police: Institutions and the persistence of policing budgets
Tate Fegley & Ilia Murtazashvili
Public Choice, July 2023, Pages 123–140
Abstract:
Dozens of municipalities in the United States pledged to defund the police after Minneapolis police officers murdered George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, while he was in their custody. We first consider whether the municipalities that promised to defund the police actually did so. We find that they did not: municipalities that promised to defund the police temporarily reduced police budgets, only to later increase them beyond what they were previously. We then argue that two mechanisms -- the electoral incentives of city politicians to provide jobs and services (what we call allocational politics) and the strength of police unions -- explain why the predominant political equilibrium is one with protected police officers as a barrier to reform. We discuss several additional reforms suggested by public choice scholars interested in the problem of predatory policing.
Did de-policing contribute to the 2020 homicide spikes?
Dae-Young Kim
Police Practice and Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Some scholars claimed that a reduction in proactive enforcement, in the wake of the pandemic and George Floyd’s death, caused the levels of homicide to increase across U.S. cities. Using time series data in NYC, the present study examines whether there was an increase in homicides in 2020 and analyzes an association between de-policing, as measured by the number of police stops, and various types of homicide. The increases in gun, non-domestic, and gang homicides were significantly associated with decreased police stops in the wake of the pandemic and Floyd protests. The study discusses implications for research and policy.
Labor Mobility and the Problems of Modern Policing
Jonathan Masur, Aurelie Ouss & John Rappaport
NYU Law Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We document and discuss the implications of a striking feature of modern American policing: the stasis of police labor forces. Using an original employment dataset assembled through public records requests, we show that, after the first few years on a job, officers rarely change employers, and intermediate officer ranks are filled almost exclusively through promotion rather than lateral hiring. Policing is like a sports league, if you removed trades and free agency and left only the draft in place. We identify both nonlegal and legal causes of this phenomenon -- ranging from geographic monopolies to statutory and collectively bargained rules about pensions, rank, and seniority -- and discuss its normative implications. On the one hand, job stability may encourage investment in training and expertise by agencies and officers alike; it may also attract some high-quality candidates, including candidates from underrepresented backgrounds, to the profession. On the other hand, low labor mobility can foster sclerosis in police departments, entrenching old ways of policing. Limited outside options may lead officers to stay in positions that suit them poorly, decreasing morale and productivity and potentially contributing to the scale of policing harms. In turn, the lack of labor mobility makes it all the more important to police officers to retain the jobs they have. This encourages them to insist on extensive labor protections and to enforce norms like the “blue wall of silence,” which exacerbate the problem of police misconduct. We suggest reforms designed to confer the advantages of labor mobility while ameliorating its costs.
Does Discipline Decrease Police Misconduct? Evidence from Chicago Civilian Allegations
Kyle Rozema & Max Schanzenbach
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023, Pages 80-116
Abstract:
Reformers are calling for greater oversight of police behavior, in part through enhanced use of civilian complaints. However, others counter that greater oversight could chill effective policing. We assess police officer response to administrative determinations of misconduct. Using Chicago data, we find strong evidence that a sustained allegation reduces that officer's future misconduct. We find no evidence that this effect is driven by incapacitation, such as assignment to desk duty, or by officer disengagement. We conclude that our findings are most consistent with improved officer conduct, in part from oversight and officer concerns over promotion, salary, and desirable assignments.
Welfare Drug Bans and Criminal Legal Cycling
Naomi Sugie & Carol Newark
American Journal of Sociology, July 2023, Pages 41–75
Abstract:
Punitive policies of welfare and criminal legal systems reflect a shared orientation governing social marginality. The welfare drug bans, which prohibit people convicted of drug-related felonies from receiving cash assistance and food stamps, are a key example of increasing synergies between the two systems. In this article, we examine whether the bans increase recidivism by leveraging a methodologically rigorous approach using administrative data from California to compare rearrest rates among people convicted before and after the bans. We find that the cash assistance ban has no measurable impact on recidivism, but the food stamps ban hastens time to arrest, particularly in counties with more accessible policies and more generous benefits. We also find differences in the bans” effects by gender and race/ethnicity, with consequences concentrated among non-Hispanic White and Black men. The findings underscore the importance of inclusive welfare systems for protecting against repeat contact with the criminal legal system.
The Prison Bust: Declining Carceral Capacity in an Era of Mass Incarceration
Jacob Harris et al.
Cornell Working Paper, July 2023
Abstract:
While there is a growing literature investigating the causes and consequences of the US prison boom -- the tripling of prison facilities between 1970 and 2000 -- much less is known about current patterns of prison closures. We use novel data capturing the universe of prison closures (N=188) from 2000 to 2022 to identify and characterize what we term “the prison bust” -- the period since 2000 when prison closures began to climb and eventually eclipse new prison building. We show that the prison bust is, in part, a consequence of development-oriented prison-building policies that aggressively used prisons to stimulate struggling local economies. The bust is primarily concentrated in the counties that pursued prison building most aggressively, reflecting a highly cyclical and reactionary pattern of prison placement and closure. We also show that, relative to counties with at least one prison but no closures, closures are concentrated in metro counties with stronger local economies and multiple prisons. Overall, we highlight the prison bust as an important new era in the history of US punishment and provide a new dataset for investigating its causes and consequences. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and policy implications of these findings.
The impact of race, gender, and demeanor on receiving leniency during traffic stops
Roderick Pearson
Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on racial disparities in traffic stops has produced mixed results, with some studies finding Black and Hispanic drivers are more likely to be ticketed than White drivers and others concluding they are not. However, there is limited research assessing whether the driver’s race, gender, or demeanor has the largest impact on receiving leniency. To fill this gap in the literature, I compare the effect of a driver’s race, gender, and demeanor on the probability of receiving leniency for traffic violations. Black and Hispanic drivers were less likely to receive leniency than White drivers. However, the driver’s demeanor had the largest impact on the probability of receiving leniency.
Did George Floyd’s murder shape the public’s felt obligation to obey the police?
Allison Cross et al.
Law and Human Behavior, August 2023, Pages 510-525
Method: Adults (N = 645) were recruited through Prolific from four politically diverse U.S. states. Participants reported their normative and instrumental obligation across three waves of data collection, each separated by 3 weeks. The first two waves were collected prior to the Floyd’s murder, and the third was collected after.
Results: Hierarchical linear models indicated that although normative obligation remained stable before Floyd’s murder, it declined after Floyd’s murder (b = −0.19, 95% CI [−0.24, −0.14], p < .001). In contrast, coercive obligation to obey increased consistently across all three waves. Liberal-leaning participants drove most of the effects.
Halfway Home? Residential Housing and Reincarceration
Logan Lee
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023, Pages 117-149
Abstract:
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are released from prison. For many, the transition back to society includes a mandatory stay in residential housing. I estimate the effect of residential housing on reincarceration using administrative data from Iowa. I address selection into residential housing by instrumenting for residential housing assignment with the recommendation rate of randomly assigned case managers. I find no evidence that Iowa's costly investment in residential housing results in reduced reincarceration relative to parole. Instead, residential housing increases reincarceration due to violent crimes and technical violations, while decreasing drug and public order crimes.
The long run effects of de jure discrimination in the credit market: How redlining increased crime
John Anders
Journal of Public Economics, June 2023
Abstract:
Today in the United States the welfare costs of crime are disproportionately borne by individuals living in predominately African-American or Hispanic neighborhoods. This paper shows that redlining practices established in the wake of the Great Depression made lasting contributions to this inequity. First I use an unannounced population cutoff that determined which cities were redline mapped to show that redline mapping increased present-day city level crime. Secondly, I use a spatial regression discontinuity to show that redlining influenced the present-day neighborhood level distribution of crime in Los Angeles, California. I also identify channels though which redline mapping influenced crime including increasing racial segregation and decreasing educational attainment.
Access to Guns in the Heat of the Moment: More Restrictive Gun Laws Mitigate the Effect of Temperature on Violence
Jonathan Colmer & Jennifer Doleac
Texas A&M University Working Paper, June 2023
Abstract:
Gun violence is a major problem in the United States, and extensive prior work has shown that higher temperatures increase violent behavior. In this paper, we consider whether restricting the concealed carry of firearms mitigates or exacerbates the effect of temperature on violence. We use two identification strategies that exploit daily variation in temperature and variation in gun control policies between and within states. Our findings suggest that more prohibitive concealed carry laws attenuate the temperature–homicide relationship. Additional results suggest that restrictions primarily decrease the lethality of temperature–driven violent crimes, rather than their overall occurrence, but may be less effective at reducing access to guns in more urban areas.