Prison, semi-liberty and recidivism: Bounding causal effects in a survival model

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of semi-liberty as an alternative to prison on recidivism in France. Our analysis is based on a unique dataset comprising 1,445 offenders, all eligible to semi-liberty. In the absence of an instrumental variable affecting access to semi-liberty but unrelated to recidivism, we turn to selection-on-observable methods as well as sensitivity analyses to bound the causal effect of interest. Our results under treatment exogeneity (Cox regressions) and conditional independence (matching) show that semi-liberty is associated with a reduction of 22% to 31% in offenders' hazard of recidivism in the five years after release. The estimated effects decrease, but remain negative and significant when credible confounders are introduced. Overall, our analysis lends strong support for a beneficial effect of semi-liberty compared to prison.

Économie du travail en prison : enjeux, résultats et recommandations

“…(Mastrobuoni et Terlizzese, 2019 ;Bhuller et al, 2020). En France, des preuves empiriques indirectes proviennent de deux des principales alternatives à l'incarcération, le bracelet électronique et la semi-liberté (Henneguelle et al, 2016 ;Henneguelle et Monnery, 2017 ;Monnery et al, 2020).…”

“…En Norvège, l'incarcération dans des prisons "ouvertes", largement tournées vers la réinsertion, est même nettement plus efficace en moyenne que les autres peines dans la prévention de la récidive et la réinsertion professionnelle des condamnés (Bhuller et al, 2020). A l'inverse en France, les peines purgées en détention semblent moins efficaces que les sanctions alternatives, comme le bracelet électronique ou la semi-liberté, dans la prévention de la récidive (Henneguelle et al, 2016 ;Henneguelle et Monnery, 2017 ;Monnery et al, 2020).…”

Prosecutors, judges and sentencing disparities: Evidence from traffic offenses in France

“…Finally, (unsuspended) prison sentence is the most severe type of punishment. It typically leads to imprisonment although it can also be converted by the court or later by a new judge in charge of the sentence execution into alternative sanctions such as electronic monitoring or semi-liberty, which also entail strong supervision and coercion from probation officers or prison officers (Henneguelle et al, 2016;Monnery et al, 2020).…”

Optimal sentencing with recurring crimes and adjudication errors

“…Some crimes have a high rate of recidivism, meaning that many offenders go back to repeat the crimes after possibly serving jail time. Crimes with such high rates of recidivism include intimate violence, child molesting, and embezzlement (see, e.g., Walsh and Beck, 1990;Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2003;Kensey and Benaouda, 2011;Durose et al, 2014;Kang, 2017;Monnery et al, 2020). In such settings, a society may want to apprehend and convict these individuals to incarcerate them so that they are unable to commit additional offenses (the so-called "incapacitation effect;" e.g., Shavell, 1987Shavell, , 2015Dittmann, 2006;Owens, 2009;Abrams, 2012;Buonanno and Raphael, 2013;Di Tella and Schargrodsky, 2013;Barbarino and Mastrobuoni, 2014).…”