Punishing
The Intergenerational Effects of Parental Incarceration
Will Dobbie et al.
NBER Working Paper, January 2018
Abstract:
We estimate the causal effect of parental incarceration on children’s medium-run outcomes using administrative data from Sweden. Our empirical strategy exploits exogenous variation in parental incarceration from the random assignment of criminal defendants to judges with different incarceration tendencies. We find that the incarceration of a parent in childhood leads to significant increases in teen crime and pregnancy and a significant decrease in early-life employment. The effects are concentrated among children from the most disadvantaged families, where teen crime increases by 18 percentage points, teen pregnancy increases by 8 percentage points, and employment at age 20 decreases by 28 percentage points. In contrast, there are no detectable effects among children from more advantaged families. These results imply that the incarceration of parents with young children may increase the intergenerational persistence of poverty and criminal behavior, even in affluent countries with extensive social safety nets.
Does a Criminal Past Predict Worker Performance? Evidence from One of America’s Largest Employers
Jennifer Hickes Lundquist, Devah Pager & Eiko Strader
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper is one of the first systematic assessments of ex-felons’ workplace performance. Using FOIA-requested data from the Department of Defense, we follow 1.3 million ex-offender and non-offender enlistees in the US military from 2002 to 2009. Those with a felony background show no difference in attrition rates due to poor performance compared to those without criminal records. Moreover, ex-felons are promoted more quickly and to higher ranks than other enlistees. At the same time, we find that ex-felons are slightly more likely to commit a legal offense in the military system (5 percent of non-felons compared to 6.6 percent of ex-felons). We also find a higher rate of work-related deaths among the ex-felon sample; closer evaluation of limited data suggests this may be driven by ex-felons being assigned more often to combat positions. Overall, our study shows that the military’s criminal history screening process can result in successful employment outcomes for ex-felons, at least in terms of job mobility and reliability, to the mutual benefit of employer and employee. An important question arising from this analysis is whether the military’s “whole person” review can apply successfully to the civilian sector.
Do Cellmates Matter? A Causal Test of the Schools of the Crime Hypothesis with Implications for Differential Association and Deterrence Theories
Heather Harris, Kiminori Nakamura & Kristofer Bret Bucklen
Criminology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the schools of crime hypothesis, social interactions between inmates are assumed to produce criminogenic rather than deterrent prison peer effects, thus implicating them in the persistence of high recidivism rates and null or criminogenic prison effects. We assess the validity of the schools of crime hypothesis by estimating prison peer effects that result from differential cellmate associations in a male, first-time release cohort from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. To isolate causal prison peer effects in the presence of essential heterogeneity, we use a semiparametric local instrumental variables estimation strategy. Our results do not support the school of crime hypothesis. In our sample, prison peer effects produced in interaction with more criminally experienced cellmates are always null or deterrent rather than criminogenic. Although we do not explicitly test for the operant conditioning mechanisms theorized to underlie social influence in the context of differential association, we argue that, under the assumption that the differential association context relates positively to the direction of peer influence, our universally noncriminogenic estimates exclude direct reinforcement, vicarious reinforcement, and direct punishment as potential drivers of prison peer effects produced in interaction with more criminally experienced cellmates. Our results support the assertion that operant conditioning mechanisms connect differential association and deterrence theories.
Revisiting white backlash: Does race affect death penalty opinion?
Ryden Butler et al.
Research & Politics, January 2018
Abstract:
Peffley and Hurwitz’s article “Persuasion and resistance: Race and the death penalty in America” is an influential study demonstrating the effects of race on death penalty attitudes. White respondents were found to increase their approval for capital punishment when informed that it disproportionately affects African-Americans. We present results from two studies, including one conducted on a nationally representative sample, that fail to find support for this finding. Our first study, which was conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk, consists of an exact replication as well as an additional manipulation that strengthens the treatment by adding information about a specific black (versus a white) defendant to the stimulus. However, we fail to elicit the backlash effect found in the original study using either manipulation despite having nearly three times the sample size. These findings are mirrored by replication data from a Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences survey that closely replicates Peffley and Hurwitz’s race framing treatment. The results from these studies suggest that the relationship between racial stimuli and death penalty support has changed since the original study, that racial backlash effects in this policy domain are not as robust as previously assumed, or both.
Progressively Tougher Sanctioning and Recidivism: Assessing the Effects of Different Types of Sanctions
Daniel Mears & Joshua Cochran
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, forthcoming
Objectives: The study tests two related hypotheses about recidivist sentencing premiums and the progressive sanctioning logic on which they rest: (1) among first-time felons, punitive sanctions will more effectively reduce recidivism than will less severe sanctions and (2) among second-time felons, progressively tougher sanctions will more effectively reduce recidivism than will progressions to comparable or less severe sanctions.
Method: We use data on first-time and second-time felons and propensity score matching analyses to test these two hypotheses.
Results: Although tougher punishment, and increasingly tougher punishment among second-time offenders, may sometimes reduce recidivism, less severe punishment appears on average to be more effective.
Does longer incarceration deter or incapacitate crime? Evidence from Truth-in-Sentencing reform
Wei Long
Applied Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article evaluates how Truth-in-Sentencing (TIS) laws impact both violent and property crimes through mandating violent offenders to serve a substantial proportion of sentenced terms before being eligible to release to community supervision. Focusing on states with effective TIS laws, I utilize the difference-in-differences design to investigate the treatment effect of TIS on crime. I observe statistically significant decline in both violent and property crimes in TIS states. A series of placebo tests confirm the robustness of the estimates and inferences. The dynamic impact of TIS is heterogeneous among the seven categories of violent and property crimes in TIS states: murder and robbery rates decline almost immediately after TIS, while property crime takes longer time to exhibit significant decline.
Age, Period, and Cohort Effects on Death Penalty Attitudes in the United States, 1974–2014
Amy Anderson, Robert Lytle & Philip Schwadel
Criminology, November 2017, Pages 833–868
Abstract:
In this article, we further the understanding of both changes in public opinion on capital punishment in the United States and changes in the factors associated with public opinion on the death penalty. Support for the death penalty may be motivated by events happening during specific time periods, and it can vary across birth cohorts as a result of cohort-specific socialization processes, demographic changes, and formative events that are specific to each generation. An explication of the sources of and variation in death penalty attitudes over time would benefit from the accounting for the age of the respondent, the year of the survey response, and the birth cohort of the respondent. We improve on previous research by using multiple approaches including hierarchical age–period–cohort models and data from the General Social Survey (N = 41,474) to examine changes in death penalty attitudes over time and across birth cohorts. The results showed curvilinear age effects, strong period effects, and weak cohort effects on death penalty support. The violent crime rate explained much of the variation in support for the death penalty across periods. The examination of subgroup differences suggests that support for the death penalty is becoming concentrated among Whites, Protestants, and Republicans.
On the Weak Mortality Returns of the Prison Boom: Comparing Infant Mortality and Homicide in the Incarceration Ledger
Michael Light & Joey Marshall
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The justifications for the dramatic expansion of the prison population in recent decades have focused on public safety. Prior research on the efficacy of incarceration offers support for such claims, suggesting that increased incarceration saves lives by reducing the prevalence of homicide. We challenge this view by arguing that the effects of mass incarceration include collateral infant mortality consequences that call into question the number of lives saved through increased imprisonment. Using an instrumental variable estimation on state-level data from 1978 to 2010, this article simultaneously considers the effects of imprisonment on homicide and infant mortality to examine two of the countervailing mortality consequences of mass incarceration. Results suggest that while incarceration saves lives by lowering homicide rates, these gains are largely offset by the increases in infant mortality. Adjusted figures that count the number of increased infant deaths attributable to incarceration suggest that the mortality benefits of imprisonment over the past three decades are 82% lower than previously thought.
Jailhouse Blues? The Adverse Effects of Pretrial Detention for Prison Social Order
Elisa Toman, Joshua Cochran & John Cochran
Criminal Justice and Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholarship suggests that individuals’ experiences in pretrial detention are especially straining. Relative to state prisons, local jails have high rates of inmate and officer turnover, more limited resources, and provide fewer services. Pretrial detention also constitutes an individual’s initial period of incarceration, during which social isolation and fear are experienced acutely but with fewer services in jail. This study assesses whether time spent in pretrial detention adversely affects prison social order. Findings suggest that longer terms of pretrial detention in jails are associated with a modest increase in the likelihood of misconduct later on during a stay in prison. Interaction effects indicate that more time spent in jail prior to imprisonment may be harmful for potentially at-risk inmates — specifically, younger inmates, female inmates, and inmates with mental illness. These results have implications for theory and research on prison experiences and social order and for understanding the adverse implications of pretrial detention and strains incurred in jail.
Completion and Recidivism Rates of High-Risk Youth on Probation: Do Home Visits Make a Difference?
Leanne Fiftal Alarid & Luis Rangel
Prison Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
Probation supervision with and without home visits is an underresearched area for adjudicated higher risk youth. This study compared 287 juvenile probationers receiving police/probation home visits with similar youth (n = 437) who were supervised on regular probation without home visits. Youth performance was measured during supervision and up to 24 months following probation. The most notable finding was that the rearrest rate for youth who had home visits during supervision was 3 times lower after probation supervision ended than for youth who did not have home visits.
Trust behind bars: Measuring change in inmates’ prosocial preferences
Mario Maggioni et al.
Journal of Economic Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The paper presents the results of a Longitudinal Lab-in-the-Field Experiment implemented between September 2015 and July 2016 performed in two State Prisons in California (USA) to measure change in prosocial preferences. A subset of eligible inmates willing to undertake GRIP (Guiding Rage Into Power) program, were randomly assigned to it. The paper tests whether the participation to this program (used as a treatment in the experiments) affects prosocial preferences of participants, with specific reference to trust. The results of a Difference-in-Differences (DID) estimation procedure show that trust significantly increased in GRIP participants compared to the control group. This result is robust to alternative estimation techniques and to the inclusion of an endogenous behavioral measure of altruism.
A potential new form of jail diversion and reconnection to mental health services: Demonstration of feasibility
Michael Compton et al.
Behavioral Sciences & the Law, September-December 2017, Pages 492–500
Abstract:
Given fragmentation between mental health and criminal justice systems, we tested the feasibility of implementing a potential new form of pre-booking jail diversion. Our “linkage system” consists of three steps: (i) individuals with serious mental illnesses and an arrest history give special consent to be enrolled in a statewide database; (ii) if an officer has an encounter with an enrolled patient and runs a routine background check, he or she receives an electronic message to call; and (iii) the “linkage specialist” provides brief telephonic assistance to the officer. Of 206 eligible individuals, 199 (96.6%) opted in, the database received 679 hits, and the linkage specialist received 31 calls (and in at least three cases an arrest was probably averted). The mean number of arrests was 0.59 ± 0.92 in the year before enrollment (38.7% arrested) and 0.48 ± 0.83 during the 12-month intervention (30.7% arrested). Implementation is feasible, and a signal that the system might reduce incarceration was detected, encouraging development of a larger study.