Smart sentencing guidelines: The effect of marginal policy changes on recidivism
Sarah M. Estelle and
David Phillips
Journal of Public Economics, 2018, vol. 164, issue C, 270-293
Abstract:
Public appeals regarding criminal justice have shifted somewhat from “tough on crime” to “smart justice” that is more lenient when tradeoffs merit it. Among other considerations, smart sentencing policy depends on how sentence severity affects recidivism. Using administrative data on two common non-violent felonies committed by adults in Michigan, we measure the effect of sentences on offenders' future criminal activity. Discontinuities in the legislative guidelines that constrain sentences chosen by Michigan judges provide exogenous variation in sentence severity. Harsher sentences generated by sentencing guidelines significantly reduce recidivism by felony shoplifters but not repeat drunk drivers. Recidivism falls most for young, male offenders from Southeast Michigan and varies non-monotonically with prior criminal record. Because of such heterogeneity, any empirical strategy measures a local average treatment effect relevant to a particular population of offenders. Contrary to our main results, we find no evidence that harsher sentences induced by judge assignments reduce recidivism in our sample. When sentencing guidelines provide the primary practical policy lever, “smart justice” should incorporate directly relevant empirical evidence that accounts for offense- and offender-specific tradeoffs between public safety and the public budget.
Keywords: Sentencing guidelines; Recidivism; Mandatory minimum (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K12 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272718300860
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
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:eee:pubeco:v:164:y:2018:i:c:p:270-293
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.05.004
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba
More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().