The Incapacitation Effect of Incarceration: Evidence from Several Italian Collective Pardons

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Barbarino, Alessandro; Mastrobuoni, Giovanni
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors; University of Essex; Collegio Carlo Alberto; Tilburg University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.6.1.1
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 1-37
• 关键词: crime; prison; imprisonment; inference; variables

摘要

We estimate the incapacitation effect on crime using variation in Italian prison population driven by eight collective pardons passed between 1962 and 1990. The prison releases are sudden (within one day), very large (up to 35 percent of the entire prison population), and happen nationwide. Exploiting this quasi-natural experiment we break the simultaneity of crime and prisoners and, in addition, use the national character of the pardons to separately identify incapacitation from changes in deterrence. The elasticity of total crime with respect to incapacitation is between -17 and -30 percent. A cost-benefit analysis suggests that Italy's prison population is below its optimal level.