Can Recidivism be Prevented from Behind Bars? Evidence from a Behavioral Program

William Arbour

Working Papers from University of Toronto, Department of Economics

Abstract: Incarcerated offenders are offered a wide range of programs to encourage their chances of successful reintegration into society. Little is known, however, about the degree to which such programs improve prisoners' reentry. In this paper, I study the effects of a cognitive-behavioral program implemented in Quebec, Canada, with a rich micro-level dataset. To manage the econometric issue of inmates' self-selection into the program, I exploit inmates' random assignment to probation officers who exhibit varying propensities to recommend the rehabilitation measure. I find large, negative, and significant effects of the program on recidivism, as measured by an inmate's probability of serving a subsequent sentence: within one year following release, the program reduces recidivism by up to 18 percentage points. Moreover, the program is shown to decrease the number of future offenses. Further analyses indicate that the most plausible mechanism can be attributed to the program's success in altering offenders' preferences towards crime.

Keywords: Incarceration; Recidivism; Cognitive-Behavioral; Judges Fixed Effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D04 J24 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: Unknown pages
Date: 2021-01-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/tecipa-683.pdf Main Text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-683

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Toronto, Department of Economics 150 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by RePEc Maintainer ().