Do Greater Sanctions Deter Youth Crime? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design

Lovett, Nicholas; Xue, Yuhan

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3116414

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…the law school from which they graduated, and the university from which they have obtained their undergraduate degree. 13 We link our defendant-judge data to LSU college football team records. Specifically, we analyze all dispositions handed down by judges during the work week following a Saturday game throughout the college football season and post season (i.e., bowl games).…”

Section: A Defendant Data and Lsu College Football Team Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Those who are found guilty (9,234 juveniles in our effective sample are found guilty as first-time offenders) are either placed on probation or in custody (secure or nonsecure). Table 1 shows 13 Information on judges is based on data from Louisiana District Judges Association , as well as phone conversations with the relevant parish clerk's office.…”

Section: A Defendant Data and Lsu College Football Team Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Emotional Judges and Unlucky Juveniles

Eren

Mocan

2018

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

103

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Employing the universe of juvenile court decisions in a US state between 1996 and 2012, we analyze the effects of emotional shocks associated with unexpected outcomes of football games played by a prominent college team in the state. We find that unexpected losses increase sentence lengths assigned by judges during the week following the game. Unexpected wins, or losses that were expected to be close contests ex ante have no impact. The effects of these emotional shocks are asymmetrically borne by black defendants. The impact of upset losses on sentence lengths is larger for defendants if their cases are handled by judges who received their bachelor's degrees from the university with which the football team is affiliated. Different falsification tests and a number of auxiliary analyses demonstrate the robustness of the findings. These results provide evidence for the impact of emotions in one domain on decisions in a completely unrelated domain among a uniformly highly educated group of individuals (judges) who make decisions after deliberation that involve high stakes (sentence lengths). They also point to the existence of a subtle and previously unnoticed capricious application of sentencing. (JEL D83, I23, J13, J15, K42, L83, Z21)

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Section: A Defendant Data and Lsu College Football Team Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Defendant Data and Lsu College Football Team Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional Judges and Unlucky Juveniles

Eren

Mocan

2018

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

103

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“…Early studies in this literature reported no discernable difference in the likelihood of recidivism among adolescents processed on either side of the age boundary (Hjalmarsson, 2009;Lee & McCrary, 2009). Subsequent studies have reported small but significant reductions in recidivism for adolescents processed as adults (Hansen & Waddell, 2014;Loeffler & Grunwald, 2015b;Lovett & Xue, 2018).…”

Section: Adolescent Justice Involvementmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…At the same time, recent studies in the nontransfer literature have hinted at the possibility that trying older adolescents as adults can lead to lower levels of future justice involvement (Hansen & Waddell, 2014;Loeffler & Grunwald, 2015a;Lovett & Xue, 2018). Whether these decreased levels of continued justice involvement for adult processed adolescents reflect decreased levels of re-offending or decreased scrutiny by the adult justice system remains an open research question (Levitt, 1998).…”

Section: Rta Evaluation Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the effects of shrinking the criminal justice system on criminal recidivism

Loeffler

Braga

2022

Criminology & Public Policy

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We examined the impact of Raise the Age (RTA) in Massachusetts, which increased the maximum jurisdictional age for its juvenile court in late 2013. Using statewide re-arraignment data and a difference-in-differences research design comparing affected 17-year-olds to unaffected 18-year-olds, we find that RTA increased recidivism for affected 17-year-olds. The observed increases in recidivism were especially large for 17-year-olds without prior justice involvement. This result may stem from the more extensive use of pretrial supervision or the diminished deterrence of prosecution within the Massachusetts juvenile justice system. Policy Implications: This study demonstrates that prosecuting older adolescents as juveniles can exacerbate rather than reduce future justice involvement. This finding highlights the ongoing risk of unanticipated and iatrogenic impacts of criminal justice interventions. It also suggests the need for caution in further expansions of RTA until evidence of anticipated programmatic benefits can be confirmed.

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“…If homicide serves as a particularly salient signal of criminal behavior, racial disparities in homicide rates could shape the allocation of policing resources. Finally, potential deterrence effects of more police may differ across Black and white neighborhoods if differences also exist in social norms or community perceptions of law enforcement legitimacy (Tyler, 2003;Gau and Brunson, 2010;Lovett and Xue, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Police Force Size and Civilian Race

Chalfin

Hansen

Weisburst

et al. 2022

American Economic Review: Insights

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We report novel empirical estimates of the race-specific effects of larger police forces in the United States. Each additional police officer abates approximately 0.1 homicides. In per capita terms, effects are twice as large for Black versus White victims. Larger police forces also make fewer arrests for serious crimes, with larger reductions for crimes with Black suspects, implying that police force growth does not increase racial disparities among the most serious charges. At the same time, larger police forces make more arrests for low-level “quality-of-life” offenses, with effects that imply a disproportionate impact for Black Americans. (JEL H76, J15, K42)

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Do Greater Sanctions Deter Youth Crime? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design

Cited by 5 publications

References 55 publications

Emotional Judges and Unlucky Juveniles

Emotional Judges and Unlucky Juveniles

Estimating the effects of shrinking the criminal justice system on criminal recidivism

Police Force Size and Civilian Race

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