Justice Reinvestment Initiative State Assessment Report

LaVigne, Nancy G.; Bieler, Samuel; Ho, Helen; Kotonias, Cybele; Mayer, Deborah K.; McClure, David L.; Pacifici, Laura; Parks, Erika; Peterson, Bryce E.; Samuels, Julie

doi:10.1037/e504472014-001

Cited by 46 publications

(60 citation statements)

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“…One advantage to evaluating prison length of stay, which amplifies this point, is that any change will have a broad impact on the entire incarcerated population. Most contemporary reforms, such as those found in states that implemented the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, seek to move the least serious offenders convicted of the least serious crimes from prison to community corrections (LaVigne et al., ). Low‐level offenders are a tiny proportion of federal prison stocks, and based on tabulations from the National Corrections Reporting Program, they are also a small proportion of state prison stocks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Relationship Between Prison Length of Stay and Recidivism: A Study Using Regression Discontinuity and Instrumental Variables With Multiple Break Points

Rhodes

Gaes

Kling

et al. 2018

Criminology & Public Policy

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Research Summary In this study, we use both a regression discontinuity design and an instrumental variable identification strategy to examine the relationship between prison length of stay and recidivism among a large sample of federal offenders. We capitalize on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines structure to apply these strong inference, quasi‐experimental approaches. We find that average length of stay can be reduced by 7.5 months with a small impact on recidivism. We also examine whether there is treatment heterogeneity. We find that length‐of‐stay effects do not vary by criminal history, offense seriousness, sex, race, and education level. Policy Implications We show that reducing the average length of stay for the federal prison population by 7.5 months could save the Bureau of Prisons 33,203 beds once the inmate population reaches steady state. This back‐of‐the‐envelope estimate reveals how reductions in time served can have a much larger impact on prison reductions compared with diverting low‐level offenders from prison to probation. Prison length‐of‐stay reductions can impact the entire prison population, whereas diversion typically affects a small subset of offenders whose consumption of prison beds is a small fraction of the total number of beds. We also discuss the potential impact of reducing levels of imprisonment on other collateral consequences.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our findings have policy implications for both federal and state sentencing reform. In most jurisdictions, sentencing reform has been designed to divert low‐level offenders from prison to probation (La Vigne et al., ). Typically, this policy diverts a small subset of offenders who have short prison lengths of stay.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationship Between Prison Length of Stay and Recidivism: A Study Using Regression Discontinuity and Instrumental Variables With Multiple Break Points

Rhodes

Gaes

Kling

et al. 2018

Criminology & Public Policy

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“…current research suggests, for example, that the current reform moment is replete with a "return on investment" language. the Urban Institute's report on JRI frames states' motivation as a "growing dissatisfaction with current returns on public safety" (LaVigne et al 2014). even liberal advocates, such as the AcLU, have adopted the language of investment:…”

Section: The Rhetoric Of Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Research Agenda on Reform

Schoenfeld

2016

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Scie

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In the past 10 years, state legislatures from across the political spectrum have passed or considered reforms aimed at reducing prison populations. The breadth of reform challenges social science scholarship that views mass incarceration as “locked-in” by political, social, and economic forces and, as such, presents an important area of scholarly inquiry. In this article, I argue that new research on reform should be animated by a sociopolitical perspective on punishment that developed out of social science research explaining the rise of mass incarceration. In particular, I pose research questions, hypotheses, and potential methodologies related to (1) the causes of the new moment of reform; (2) the variation in reform efforts; and (3) the process, content, and political effects of reform. I conclude by briefly summarizing what we know about the underlying rationales and strategies of this new moment.

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“…Recent years have witnessed several moderations to federal sentencing practices as well as the public pronouncement by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that we are over‐incarcerating drug offenders in federal prisons. Several states have on their own initiative reduced their prison populations through sentencing, parole, and probation reforms (Raphael and Stoll, ), whereas an additional 17 states are in the process of scaling back the use of incarceration through participation in the federal Justice Reinvestment Initiative (LaVigne et al., ). Even in California, the state with one of the earliest and harshest three‐strikes law enacted through a direct‐democracy ballot initiative, voters recently moderated the scope of the law to ensure that offenders do not receive life sentences for less serious offenses.…”

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confidence: 99%

How Do We Reduce Incarceration Rates While Maintaining Public Safety?

Raphael

2014

Criminology & Public Policy

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T he heavy reliance on incarceration in the United States is unusual relative to U.S. history and relative to the use of incarceration in other nations. By now, the facts are common knowledge. We incarcerate our citizens at a rate that exceeds every other nation and that is multiple times (on the order of five to seven) the rates of other high-income countries. Moreover, since the mid-1970s, our incarceration rate has more than quadrupled. Several recent comprehensive studies of the rise of mass incarceration have concluded that nearly all of the growth in U.S. incarceration rates over recent decades can be attributed to changes in sentencing policy that have resulted in a higher propensity to apply prison as punishment and longer effective prison sentences (Raphael and Stoll, 2013;Travis and Western, 2014).Tonry (2014, this issue) offers a road map for the sentencing reforms that states and the federal government must pursue in some combination to affect substantial declines in the U.S. incarceration rate. The overall proposal is to the point, frank, and enumerates the sentencing practices specifically that drive mass incarceration. In terms of general principles, Tonry argues for a greater degree of proportionality between offense severity and sentence length, the greater individualization of sentencing, and a more systematic approach to sentencing that incorporates capacity constraints and social scientific knowledge on the determinants of offending and reoffending.Tonry's (2014) proposal calls for the elimination or moderation of sentencing practices that tend to create long sentences for repeat and serious offenders, for example, three-strikes laws, truth-in-sentencing restrictions, life-without-parole sentences, and various mandatory minimums that govern sentencing at the state and federal levels. Such changes in conjunction with the establishment of sentencing commissions shielded from political influence would

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Justice Reinvestment Initiative State Assessment Report

Cited by 46 publications

References 0 publications

Relationship Between Prison Length of Stay and Recidivism: A Study Using Regression Discontinuity and Instrumental Variables With Multiple Break Points

Relationship Between Prison Length of Stay and Recidivism: A Study Using Regression Discontinuity and Instrumental Variables With Multiple Break Points

A Research Agenda on Reform

How Do We Reduce Incarceration Rates While Maintaining Public Safety?

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