Do Private Prisons Affect Criminal Sentencing?

Christian Dippel and Mikhail Poyker

No 25715, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using a newly constructed complete monthly panel of private and public state prisons, we ask whether private prisons impact judges’ sentencing decisions in their state. We employ two identification strategies, a difference-in-difference strategy comparing court-pairs that straddle state-borders, and an event study. We find that the opening of private prisons has a large effect on sentence lengths shortly after opening but this effect dissipates once the prison is at capacity. Public prison openings have no such effects, suggesting that private prisons have an impact on criminal sentencing that public ones do not.

JEL-codes: D72 H76 K0 K14 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
Note: LE LS PE POL
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published as Christian Dippel & Michael Poyker, 2023. "Do Private Prisons Affect Criminal Sentencing?," The Journal of Law and Economics, vol 66(3), pages 511-534.

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