The Deterrent Effects of Prison: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Drago, Francesco; Galbiati, Roberto; Vertova, Pietro
• 署名单位: Parthenope University Naples; Bocconi University; University of Bergamo
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/599286
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 257-280
• 关键词: reduce crime; police; rates

摘要

The Collective Clemency Bill passed by the Italian Parliament in July 2006 represents a natural experiment to analyze the behavioral response of individuals to an exogenous manipulation of prison sentences. On the basis of a unique data set on the postrelease behavior of former inmates, we find that 1 month less time served in prison commuted into 1 month more in expected sentence for future crimes reduces the probability of recidivism by 0.16 percentage points. From this result we estimate an elasticity of average recidivism with respect to the expected punishment equal to -0.74 for a 7-month period.