THE IMPACT OF ENHANCED PRISON TERMS FOR FELONIES COMMITTED WITH GUNS*

Legislation mandating minimum sentences or additions to sentences for crimes committed with guns is a frequent response to gun problems. We compiled these state laws and estimated their impact on state prison populations, prison admissions, UCR crime rates, and gun use in homicides, assaults and robberies. We employed a multiple time series research design, with data for nearly all states over the past 16 to 24 years, such that for any one state the remaining states operated as controls. Several small-scale studies have suggested that the laws might reduce some types of gun crime. We found that the laws produced such an impact in no more than a few states and that there is little evidence that the laws generally reduce crime or increase prison populations.     

Prison population growth and crime reduction

The impact of state prison populations on crime is typically estimated by applying the lambda, the individual crime rate, of prisoners or arrestees. We outline the problems with this approach, attempt to reanalyze the widely divergent lambdas derived in past research, and make adjustments necessary to use lambdas for estimating the incapacitation impact. The result is an uncertain estimate of 16 to 25 index crimes averted per year per each additional prisoner. We argue that regression analysis can provide a better estimate of the impact of prison population growth. Applying the Granger test to pooled state data over 19 years, we found that prison population growth leads to lower crime rates but that crime rate changes have little or no short-term impact on prison population growth. Next we regressed crime rates on prison population and conclude that, on average, at least 17 index crimes are averted per additional prisoner. The impact is limited mainly to property crime.     

The impact of state sentencing policies on the U.S. prison population

This article examines the aggregate effects of neoclassical sentencing reforms on three often contested outcomes of these reforms. The rate of new court commitments, the average length of time inmates serve, and prison population rates across the fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia are examined. Data from 1973 to 1998 across these jurisdictions are analyzed using hierarchical multivariate linear models (HMLM). Results show that on the aggregate, sentencing reforms are not directly related to changes in state prison populations; however, abolition of parole is negatively associated with state prison population rates. Two types of sentencing reforms, the voluntary sentencing guidelines and the ‘three-strikes’ laws are indirectly related to changes in prison populations and have opposite influences on rates of new court commitments. Of six sentencing practices examined, not one is associated with length of incarceration. These results do not support the contention that neoclassical changes to the nation's sentence policies account for the rapid increase in the state prison populations between the early 1970s and late 1990s.     

Prison commitments,crime, and unemployment: A theoretical and empirical specification for the United States, 1933–1985

This paper examines sources for the changing commitment rates to U.S. state prisons (PCR) from 1933 to 1985 using a variety of time-series techniques. Theoretically, it resolves ambiguous interpretations of how crime, unemployment, and imprisonment are related. Hypotheses that crime and punishment are in equilibrium are rejected. Our final specification supports theories integrating institutionally endogenous and socially exogenous causes of prison use and includes feedback effects between crime and punishment. We reached several general conclusions. (1) Changes in PCR are due partly to changes in the levels of unemployment, age composition of the population, and military active-duty rates. (2) Effects of the criminal justice system, captured as autoregressive institutional drift, account for approximately half of the year-to-year fluctuations in the PCR. The contemporaneous prison discharge rate also influences the rate of prison commitments. (3) Neither the specified nor the unspecified institutional effects mediate the effects of other exogenous variables. (4) Under most simultaneous-equation specifications, the crime rate is moderately influenced by the contemporaneous unemployment rate and strongly influenced by prior levels of prison commitments. The preferred simultaneous causal model estimates a modest positive coefficient for the unemployment-crime causal path and a substantial positive coefficient for the unemployment-prison commitment causal path.     

THE IMPACT OF OUT-OF-STATE PRISON POPULATION ON STATE HOMICIDE RATES: DISPLACEMENT AND FREE-RIDER EFFECTS*

Past studies of the impact of prison population on homicide rates have produced widely divergent results. Those using state-level data find small impacts, but those using national data find very large ones. We use displacement/free-rider theory to explore the difference between these results. Displacement, in the current context, refers to a criminal's movement away from states with higher imprisonment rates. Free riding occurs when a state benefits from criminals being incarcerated in other states. If the displacement effect holds, a state's prison population has a stronger impact on crime within the state than would be accomplished by deterrence and incapacitation alone. If the free-rider effect holds, higher prison populations outside the state reduce homicide in the state because criminals are incapacitated elsewhere. Using vital statistics data for 1929 to 1992, we conduct separate homicide regressions for each state using both in-state and out-of-state prison population as independent variables. We find that the out-of-state variable has a much larger (negative) association with homicide, indicating substantial free riding. We also find evidence of a small displacement impact.     

U.S. SOCIAL STRUCTURE, CRIME, AND IMPRISONMENT

This research develops a structural model of crime and imprisonment in the United States from data on 49 states which was evaluated through a series of path and regression analyses. The major findings revealed that crime rates were effectively predicted by social structural characteristics, primarily urban population characteristics, and in turn that prison admissions were predicted by crime rates. Prison releases were not as strongly influenced by structural characteristics as crime rates and prison admissions; however, prison admissions were found to significantly affect releases. Variations in social structural determinants of violent and property crimes were also observed. The implication of these results ore discussed and suggestions for future research are presented.     

Demographically disaggregated projections of prison populations

The need for improved long-run projections of prison populations has increased in recent years because of record-high numbers of inmates and severe overcrowding in state and federal prisons, and because of the growing importance of changing demographic factors in influencing corrections populations. A model is developed for projecting: general population demographics; demographic- and offense-specific arrest rates, imprisonment probabilities, and times served; and then the size and composition of prison populations. Model parameters are estimated for Pennsylvania and are shown to be sensitive to demographic factors, particularly age and race. Projections of future arrests, prison commitments, and prison population are developed for Pennsylvania using projections of demographic changes in the state's population. Arrests are expected to peak in 1980, prison commitments are expected to peak in 1985, and prison populations are expected to peak in 1990, with the subsequent declines reflecting the maturation of the postwar baby boom children out of the highly crime-prone ages and, somewhat later, out of the highly prison-prone ages.     

Opening the Door for More: Assessing the Impact of Sentencing Reforms on Commitments to Prison Over Time

Since the early 1970s, U.S. states have adopted a series of sentencing reforms that have substantially altered sentencing and release policies by limiting discretion of judges, parole boards, and/or prison administrators. The current study assesses shifts in year-to-year changes in new commitments and parolees returned to prison within all 50 states from the years 1972 to 2008. The study tests the theory that sentencing reforms resulted in increased commitments to prison due to changes in the structures of sentencing and not due to increased crime. Data was analyzed using panel regression with robust standard errors, fixed effects, and conditional change scores. By treating six main sentencing reforms as dynamically interacting, the results suggest that certain combinations of sentencing reforms significantly increase new commitments while the number of parolees returned to prison was not meaningfully affected. The analysis further indicates that the combinations that the reforms appear in at the state-level influence the magnitude of the impacts of reforms.     

PROBATION AND PAROLE: PUBLIC RISK AND THE FUTURE OF INCARCERATION ALTERNATIVES*

Jail and prison populations in the United States have continued to grow unabated during the past two decades but crime rates have not declined. Partly in response to the pressures caused by burgeoning correctional populations, the use of alternatives to incarceration has expanded. An ongoing debate centers on the effectiveness of these alternatives. Many criminal justice professionals and some researchers question whether such alternatives seriously restrict the criminal justice system 's ability to incapacitate the active offender. This study deals specifically with two alternatives to incarceration: probation and parole. We examine offender recidivism for a sample of probationers and parolees active in New Orleans, Louisiana, and offer a new approach to addressing the effectiveness issue. Past research has evaluated the effectiveness of alternatives by examining failure rates of diverted offenders. High failure rates, we argue, do not necessarily imply a significant loss of the incapacitative effects of imprisonment. We suggest that a more appropriate measure of the loss of incapacitative effect is the proportion of all offenses committed by persons on probation or parole. Our results suggest that such losses are surprisingly low. The policy implications of our findings are discussed.     

Prisons and Crime, Backwards in High Heels

Objectives

Prisons reduce crime rates, but crime increases prison populations. OLS estimates of the effects of prisons on crime combine the two effects and are biased toward zero. The standard solution—to identify the crime equation by finding instruments for prison—is suspect, because most variables that predict prison populations can be expected to affect crime, as well. An alternative is to identify the prison equation by finding instruments for crime, allowing an unbiased estimate of the effect of crime on prisons. Because the two coefficients in a simultaneous system are related through simple algebra, we can then work backward to obtain an unbiased estimate of the effect of prisons on crime.

Methods

Potential instruments for crime are tested and used to identify the prison equation for the 50 U.S. states for the period 1978–2009. The effect of prisons on crime consistent with this relationship is obtained through algebra; standard errors are obtained through Monte Carlo simulation.

Results

Resulting estimates of the effect of prisons on crime are around ?0.25 ± 0.15. This is larger than biased OLS estimates, but similar in size to previous estimates based on standard instruments.

Conclusions

When estimating the effect of a public policy response on a public problem, it may be more productive to find instruments for the problem and work backward than to find instruments for the response and work forward.     

Specifying the Relationship Between Crime and Prisons

There is no scholarly consensus as to the proper functional form of the crime equation, particularly with regard to one critical, explanatory variable—prison population. The critical questions are whether crime and prison rates must be differenced, whether they are cointegrated, and whether they are simultaneously determined—whether crime and prison cause one another. To determine the proper specification, different researchers have applied unit-root, cointegration, and Granger tests to very similar data sets and obtained very different results. This has led to very different specifications and predictably different implications for public policy. These differences are more likely to be due to the methods used, rather than to real differences among the data sets. When the best available methods are used to identify the proper specification for a panel of U.S. states, results are fairly clear. Crime rates and prison populations are close to unit-root; crime and prison are not cointegrated; crime clearly affects subsequent prison populations. Thus the best specification of the crime equation must rely on differenced data and instrumental variables. Alternative specifications run a substantial risk of spurious results.

SELECTIVE INCAPACITATION AND THE PROBLEM OF PREDICTION*

Recent innovations in sentencing policy across the United States reveal a renewed interest in the idea of selective incapacitation of criminal offenders. This is perhaps most evident in the proliferation of “Three Strikes and You're Out” habitual-offender statutes across the nation. Although the term was first introduced by David Greenberg in 1975, Peter Greenwood and Allan Abrahamse's eponymous 1982 Rand report represents the most fully articulated plan for implementing such a strategy. The report's release stimulated much discussion, because of the AUTHOR'S claims that selective incapacitation could simultaneously reduce crime rates and prison populations. Ethical problems inherent in such proposals as well as methodological inconsistencies in the original research warrant a reexamination of the proposal and of the empirical basis for the conclusions offered therein. Greenwood and Abrahamse's original research is replicated with a representative sample of California state prison inmates (N = 2, 188) in light of these limitations, with specific focus on the methodological issues concerning the construction of the predictive scale. The selective incapacitation scheme advocated by Greenwood and Abrahamse performs extremely poorly in terms of both reliability and validity, thus precluding the implementation of such schemes. The article contains a discussion of other, more ethically acceptable uses of an instrument that identifies “high-rate” or “dangerous” offenders. In conclusion, some observations on the limitations of incarceration-based strategies of crime control are offered.     

Crime,cash, and limited options: Explaining the prison boom*

Research Summary An analysis of a state panel of prison populations from 1977 to 2005 shows that the best predictors of prison populations are crime, sentencing policy, prison crowding, and state spending. Prison populations grew at roughly the same rate and during the same periods as spending on education, welfare, health and hospitals, highways, parks, and natural resources. Current and lagged values of state spending on prison construction also accounted for a substantial amount of variation in subsequent prison populations. Public opinion, partisan politics, the electoral cycle, and social threats seem to have had little effect on the number of prisoners. Policy Implications The availability of publicly acceptable alternatives to incarceration may not be sufficient to reverse course. Federal funding of alternatives—but not prisons—would provide states with the financial incentive to reduce prison populations.     

Street justice: Some micro-moral reservations: Comment on sykes

Research on the use of incapacitation strategies to reduce crime has increased rapidly in the last decade. Estimates of the crime reduction potential are numerous and variable, reflecting different assumptions by researchers. This paper reviews and synthesizes studies of collective and selective incapacitation. Sentencing practices in the 1970s and early 1980s prevented an estimated 10 to 30 percent of potential crimes through collective incapacitation strategies. Greater use of incarceration, such as through mandatory minimum sentences, would prevent additional crimes, but prison populations would increase substantially. Selective incapacitation strategies target a small group of convicted offenders, those who are predicted to commit serious crimes at high rates, for incarceration. These high-rate serious offenders, however, are difficult to identify accurately with information currently available in official criminal history records. Preliminary research, assuming moderate accuracy, suggests that selective incapacitation may prevent some crimes, such as 5 to 10 percent of robberies by adults, but increases in prison populations would result. The future of selective incapacitation is discussed in light of current research and knowledge about serious criminal activity.     

Crime Reduction and the Length of Prison Sentences

The issue discussed is whether policies of imposing increasingly lengthy prison sentences on serious criminal offenders reduce crime. The empirical evidence for the deterrence and incapacitation effects of incarceration is first examined and found to be of limited help in answering the question whether lengthy prison sentences reduce crime. Conceptual and normative analysis of deterrence and incapacitation suggest that we have little reason to believe that the general use of lengthy prison terms produces more good than harm for society, especially if the burdens of and alternatives to such prison terms are taken into account.     

“Striking out” as crime reduction policy: The impact of “three strikes” laws on crime rates in U.S. cities

During the 1990s, in response to public dissatisfaction over what were perceived as ineffective crime reduction policies, 25 states and Congress passed three strikes laws, designed to deter criminal offenders by mandating significant sentence enhancements for those with prior convictions. Few large-scale evaluations of the impact of these laws on crime rates, however, have been conducted. Our study used a multiple time series design and UCR data from 188 cities with populations of 100,000 or more for the two decades from 1980 to 2000. We found, first, that three strikes laws are positively associated with homicide rates in cities in three strikes states and, second, that cities in three strikes states witnessed no significant reduction in crime rates.     

Understanding the place of punishment: Disadvantage,politics, and the geography of imprisonment in 21st century America

Studies suggest that the spatial distribution of punishment in the United States is shifting. This article analyzes variation in prison admissions across U.S. counties to deepen our understanding of the contemporary geography of punishment. While research on punishment generally treats economic and political theories of punishment as distinct, we draw on recent studies of penal attitudes to develop a theoretical argument regarding their possible interconnection. We then use Hierarchical Linear Modeling to test the hypothesis that conservatism, race, and disadvantage are associated with the use of prison and that these factors help to explain why prison admission rates are higher in rural and suburban counties than in urban ones, despite notably higher crime rates in the latter. The results indicate that nonurban counties send more people to prison than urban counties and that socioeconomic disadvantage, the size of the Black population, and conservatism are significant predictors of prison admissions after controlling for crime‐related problems. These findings suggest that poverty, race, and politics work in concert to shape the distribution of punishment across 21st century America.     

Can college courses in prison cut crime after release? A review of follow-up studies of prison higher education and recidivism

This paper discusses empirical findings and theories about prison higher education and recidivism. The research designs of available evaluations of prison higher education are discussed. Their results in regard to arrest and return to prison after release are presented in tables and figures. Both opportunity theory and moral development theory have been used to justify such prison programs as crime prevention measures. A critical examination of the actual findings of the evaluations carried out up to now suggests that prison higher education may have had only a slight impact on recidivism. One could, therefore, doubt the value of opportunity theory and moral development theory to justify prison higher education as a crime control measure. However, the methods used in the evaluations of this program have been generally weak. Thus, there is a continuing need to carry out well-designed research on this question. The findings of follow-up studies of prison higher education have significance for issues of correctional education policy as well as criminological theory.     

The prosecution of bias crime in the Netherlands and the problem of net-widening: fundamental limits to criminal liability

Crimes that are committed with bias motives are categorised as ??hate?? or bias crimes and are punished more severely than nonbias crimes. However, bias crime laws are often applied to offences where there is no clear evidence of a bias motive. Based on the results of 318 case studies into bias crime prosecutions in the Netherlands, this paper demonstrates that the causes of net-widening should be sought in the action-oriented nature of criminal law reasoning. Decision makers rely on objective behavioural indicators to infer motives. However, these are rarely reliable. We argue that this process results in a transformation of bias crime laws. They are no longer used to punish harmful motives. Rather, they are used to combat behaviour that is considered socially harmful on account of its perceived intolerant, racist or xenophobic message. This forces us to reconsider the justification behind trying to punish motive.     

PARTISAN POLITICS,ELECTORAL COMPETITION AND IMPRISONMENT: AN ANALYSIS OF STATES OVER TIME*

The now well‐documented explosion in prison populations over the last 30 years has spurred significant attention in the literature. Early research focused primarily on economic explanations. More recently it has focused on political explanations of prison growth. Here we extend research on political explanations of imprisonment by drawing on the literature on state politics and public policy. We argue that the effect of partisan politics on punishment is conditional on how much electoral competition legislators face. We test this hypothesis using annual state level data on imprisonment from 1978 to 1996. Our findings show that the effect of Republican state legislative strength on prison admissions depends on time and the level of competition in state legislative elections. We argue that these findings suggest the need for a more nuanced understanding of the link between partisan U.S. politics and imprisonment.