We estimate the impact of financial sanctions in the U.S. criminal justice system using nine distinct natural experiments across five states. These regression discontinuity designs capture a range of enforcement levels ($17-$6,000) and institutional environments, providing robust causal evidence...

There is a vigorous debate on whether arrests for domestic violence (DV) will deter future abuse or create a retaliatory backlash. We study how arrests affect the dynamics of DV using administrative data for over 124,000 DV emergency calls (999 calls) for West Midlands, the second most populous...

Laws permitting the expungement of criminal convictions are a key component of modern criminal justice reform efforts and have been the subject of a recent upsurge in legislative activity. This debate has been almost entirely devoid of evidence about the laws' effects, in part because the...

This paper explores theoretically and empirically whether wrongfully convicted defendants receive different punishments than correctly convicted defendants. I develop a theoretical model in which judges observe a signal -- the level of incriminating evidence -- and then engage in `compromise...

We revisit the economic theory of exclusionary rules. First, we show that more exclusion may induce enforcers to conduct more searches, contrary to the standard notion that more exclusion leads to fewer searches. Second, we identify and investigate the complexities that arise when enforcers may...

In a criminal trial, a jury may observe characteristics about the defendant (or victim) and use them to form a belief on the likelihood of guilt. Many evidentiary rules attempt to limit this inference. If jury beliefs are rational, such rules may be counterproductive. Any prohibition on the use...