"One With A Gun Gets You Two": Mandatory Sentencing and Firearms Violence in Detroit

Colin Loftin and David Mcdowall

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1981, vol. 455, issue 1, 150-167

Abstract: Mandatory sentences for crimes committed with a gun are a popular policy because they promise a reduction in gun violence at a relatively low cost. In this article we present some results of a study of the implementa tion of such a law in Detroit, Michigan. Two major questions are discussed: (1) what effect did the Michigan gun law have on the certainty and severity of sentences; and (2) did the gun law reduce the number of serious violent crimes in Detroit? We find that, although the law required a two-year mandatory sentence for felonies committed with a gun and the prosecutor followed a strict policy of not reducing the gun law charge, there was little change in the certainty or severity of sentences that could be attributed to the effects of the gun law. Only in the case of assault was there a significant change in the expected sentence. Also serious violent crimes—murder, robbery, and assault—follow patterns over time that lead us to conclude that the gun law did not significantly alter the number or type of serious crimes in Detroit.

Date: 1981
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000271628145500113 (text/html)

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:sae:anname:v:455:y:1981:i:1:p:150-167

DOI: 10.1177/000271628145500113

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().