How Common are Electoral Cycles in Criminal Sentencing?

Dippel, Christian; Poyker, Michael

doi:10.3386/w25716

Cited by 8 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…This dataset is restricted; however, one can apply for it with IRB and get access within a month. Other data comes from Dippel and Poyker (2019) and Poyker and Dippel (2019). Below we provide the description of the data and how it was obtained.…”

Section: Sentencing Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The example is from Washington, where judges are elected for fouryear cycles. This data is from (Dippel and Poyker, 2019) and was originally collected from ballotpedia.org. In Minnesota, judges are elected for six-year cycles.…”

Section: Alabamamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…See details of the construction of electoral cycles and linking inDippel and Poyker (2019).5 Their label varies; in some states they are labeled circuit courts, district courts, or superior courts, but they are always identified as being above the courts of limited jurisdiction and below the state appellate courts.6 We use population weights; however, all results hold if we don't weight by population. 7 More precisely, the 2005-2008 ratings data is for all shows, while the 2010-2017 ratings data are for prime time shows.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The list of counties with elected/appointed judges is available at https://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_ selection_in_Kansas.28 Arizona, Indiana, and Missouri also have within state variation in selection of judges, but their counties are not comparable in terms of covariates(Park, 2017).29 We trim the electoral cycles at the state-wide filing date, after which the electoral cycle effectively ends for the large majority of judges who have no challenger for their seat. More details on construction of the electoral cycles can be found inDippel and Poyker (2019).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Conservative News Media and Criminal Justice: Evidence from Exposure to Fox News Channel

Ash¹,

Poyker²

2019

SSRN Journal

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Exposure to conservative news causes judges to impose harsher criminal sentences. Our evidence comes from an instrumental variables analysis, where randomness in television channel positioning across localities induces exogenous variation in exposure to Fox News Channel. These treatment data on news viewership are taken to outcomes data on almost 7 million criminal sentencing decisions in the United States for the years 2005-2017. Higher Fox News viewership increases incarceration length, and the effect is stronger for black defendants and for drug-related crimes. We can rule out changes in the behavior of police, prosecutors, or potential offenders as significant drivers. Consistent with changes in voter attitudes as the key mechanism, the effect on sentencing harshness is observed for elected, but not appointed, judges.

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Section: Sentencing Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Alabamamentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Conservative News Media and Criminal Justice: Evidence from Exposure to Fox News Channel

Ash¹,

Poyker²

2019

SSRN Journal

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“…It shows that electoral competition leads judges to levy harsher sentences in the lead-up to elections (Huber and Gordon, 2004;Berdejó and Yuchtman, 2013;Dippel and Poyker, 2019;Abrams, Galbiati, Henry, and Philippe, 2019). The presence of such cycles implies that 'direct influence' by private prisons should be most important when judges are seeking re-election (by way of campaign contributions).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Private Prisons Affect Criminal Sentencing?

Dippel¹,

Poyker²

2019

Self Cite

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Using a newly constructed complete monthly panel of private and public state prisons, we ask whether private prisons impact judges' sentencing decisions in their state. We employ two identification strategies, a difference-indifference strategy comparing court-pairs that straddle state-borders, and an event study. We find that the opening of private prisons has a large effect on sentence lengths shortly after opening but this effect dissipates once the prison is at capacity. Public prison openings have no such effects, suggesting that private prisons have an impact on criminal sentencing that public ones do not.

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Fiscal Pressures and Discriminatory Policing: Evidence from Traffic Stops in Missouri

Harris

Ash

Fagan

2020

J. Race Ethnicity Politics

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This paper provides evidence of racial variation in traffic enforcement responses to local government budget stress using data from policing agencies in the state of Missouri from 2001 through 2012. Like previous studies, we find that local budget stress is associated with higher citation rates; we also find an increase in traffic-stop arrest rates. However, we find that these effects are concentrated among White (rather than Black or Latino) drivers. The results are robust to the inclusion of a range of covariates and a variety of model specifications, including a regression discontinuity examining bare budget shortfalls. Considering potential mechanisms, we find that targeting of White drivers is higher where the White-to-Black income ratio is higher, consistent with the targeting of drivers who are better able to pay fines. Further, the relative effect on White drivers is higher in areas with statistical over-policing of Black drivers: when Black drivers are already getting too many fines, police cite White drivers from whom they are presumably more likely to be able to raise the needed extra revenue. These results highlight the relationship between policing-as-taxation and racial inequality in policing outcomes.

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How Common are Electoral Cycles in Criminal Sentencing?

Cited by 8 publications

References 13 publications

Conservative News Media and Criminal Justice: Evidence from Exposure to Fox News Channel

Conservative News Media and Criminal Justice: Evidence from Exposure to Fox News Channel

Do Private Prisons Affect Criminal Sentencing?

Fiscal Pressures and Discriminatory Policing: Evidence from Traffic Stops in Missouri

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