There is a debate about whether advisory non-binding sentencing guidelines affect the sentences outcomes of individuals convicted in jurisdictions with this sentencing framework. Identifying the impact of sentencing guidelines is a difficult empirical problem because court actors may have...

There is a debate about whether advisory non-binding sentencing guidelines affect the sentences outcomes of individuals convicted in jurisdictions with this sentencing framework. Identifying the impact of sentencing guidelines is a difficult empirical problem because court actors may have...

No consensus has emerged about how, or even if, incarceration affects the behavior of convicted offenders. One unexplored mechanism involves the possibility that the disutility of punishment is affected by both the actual punishment an offender receives and the sentence that he thinks could have...

We construct a framework that defines optimal outcomes in criminal courts, and we use this framework to interpret and organize the existing literature on racial disparities in pretrial detention, sentencing, and community corrections outcomes. Existing research indicates that some actors within...

A standard methodology in program evaluation is to use time series variation to compare pre- and post-program outcomes. However, when the timing of a break in a statistical relationship can be determined only by looking at the data, then the usual distribution of the test statistic which assumes...

In 2001, amendments to the Higher Education Act made people convicted of drug offenses ineligible for federal financial aid for up to two years after their conviction. Using rich data on educational outcomes and drug charges in the NLSY 1997, we show that this law change had a large negative...

The analysis of a new dataset on state prisoners in the 1900 to 1930 censuses reveals that immigrants rapidly assimilated to native incarceration patterns. One feature of these data is that the second generation can be identified, allowing direct analysis of this group and allowing their...

A long theoretical literature in economics addresses the heavy reliance of the U.S. criminal justice system on very expensive forms of punishment - prison - when cheaper alternatives - such as fines and other sanctions - are available. This paper analyzes the role of fines as a criminal sanction...