Juvenile Incarceration and Crime after ReleaseEvidence from a Harsher Law

Néstor Gandelman

Universidad ORT Uruguay

Ignacio Munyo

Universidad de Montevideo

Jornadas de Economía del BCU, Montevideo, 19 de agosto 2016

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Juvenile crime

• In Uruguay, youth crime tripled in the last 15 years– Minors comprised 8% of total population and accounted for

15% of total offences, 26% of the homicides and more than 40% of the robberies (Munyo 2013)

• …also a problem in almost every country in Latin America (Frühling and Martínez 2011)

• …and the rest of the world (United Nations 2004, 2007)

Objective

• To evaluate the impact of longer time in jail on juvenile recidivism

How do we do that?

• We evaluate the impact of law 19,055 that increased time in jail for some juvenile offenders

Identification strategy in brief

• Law 19,055 (Jan-13) increased the minimum incarceration period for some crimes (robberies) but not others (theft)

• Theft is defined as depriving a person of property without the use of violence, whereas robbery is defined as depriving a person of property with the use or threat of violence

• This provides a quasi experimental framework ideal for a difference in difference strategy

Literature

– Harsher punishment increases recidivism• Criminal learning environment (Chen and Shapiro 2007;

Bayer at al 2009; Camp and Gaes 2009; DeLisi et al 2011)

• Interruption in the accumulation of work-related skills & labor market stigmatization (Western 2002; Holzer 2007)

– Harsher punishment reduces recidivism• Deterrence given by unpleasantness life in custody

(Smith and Gartin 1989)

• Theory: Increase in the sentence length has ambiguous effects on recidivism

Literature• Empirical evidence: Mixed

General deterrence

– Criminological studies in the U.S. find no evidence of harsher punishments (Singer 1988; Jensen and Metsger 1994; Steiner et al. 2006)

– Economic literature all over the world finds that harsher punishments deter potential juvenile offenders (Levitt 1998; Imai and Krishna 2004; Mocan and Rees 2005; Oka 2009; Entoff 2011; Ibáñez et al. 2013).

Specific deterrence

– On the one hand, Hjalmarsson (2009) finds that incarceration reduces recidivism by 13 percentage points after taking advantage on discontinuities in punishment that arise in Washington State’s juvenile sentencing guidelines

– On the other hand, Aizer and Doyle (2015) examine the outcomes of comparable youths in the U.S. who are randomly assigned to judges who differ in their sentencing severity and find that confined juvenile have 25-year reconviction rates 22 percentage points higher

Literature

• Nagin et al. (2009) – The existing research is limited in size, in quality,

and in its insights into why a prison term might be preventative or criminogenic.

• Moestue et al. (2013) – Review the empirical evidence on youth violence

prevention programs in Latin America and conclude that given the limited number of high-quality impact evaluations, there is still weak empirical evidence for determining what works and what does not.

Data

• The universe of juvenile offenders (2011- Feb 2016)

• Variables included– Type of crime–Detailed information on time spent in each facility and escapes– Some control variables (age, gender, city location, education, id code for the

mother)

• Anonymity: due to legislative protection we are able to individualize inmate only by a code-number

– (Limitation): we can estimate recidivism only before adulthood since we cannot cross this data with the information of the adult penal system

– In order no to bias our estimates we work with individuals up to 17.5 years old when released to have a 6 months window to measure recidivism

• We consider 2 Datasets:–Only first incarceration and release–Every incarceration and release

Data

Data

DataMean Difference Between Juveniles Who Committed Thefts and Robberies

Empirical strategy

• First step: to establish a time framework to measure recidivism: 6 months

• Second step: classify offenders in 4 groups– (i) committed a robbery before the legal modification – (ii) committed a robbery after the legal modification – (iii) committed a theft before the legal modification – (iv) committed a theft after the legal modification

Effect of increase in sentence length in recidivism: [(ii)-(i)]-[(iv)-(iii)]

Empirical strategySentence Length in days by Type of Crime Before and After Law 19,055

Empirical strategyDatabase Considering only First Release

Sentence Length

Empirical strategyDatabase Considering Every Release

Sentence Length

Empirical strategyAverage Recidivism by Type of Crime Before and After Law 19,055

Empirical strategyDatabase Considering only First Release

180-Day Recidivism

Empirical strategyDatabase Considering Every Release

180-Day Recidivism

Empirical strategy

• Formally:

–Y is the effective sentence length or a dummy indicating those that recidivate within a certain period.

–Robbery=1 for those individuals that committed robberies (treated)

–After=1 for all crimes committed after the new law (treatment period)

–X are controls

itjijt

ittiijt

X

RobberyAfterAfterRobberyY

*3210

Impact of the Law 19,055 on Sentence Length

Results

Impact of Longer Sentences on Recidivism

Results

Impact of Longer Sentences on 60-Day

and 30-Day Recidivism

Results

Placebo tests (180-Day Recidivism)

Results

Conclusion

• There was a significant increase in sentence for those juveniles that committed robberies (the new law was effectively applied)

• This longer time in juvenile correctional facilities did not increased recidivism

• Moreover, in most specifications we find a negative and statistically significant effect of more time in custody on crime after release

• Limitation: we do not consider long run effects on future adult crime

Discussion• Our result apparently contradicts recent empirical findings in the

literature suggesting that harsh prison conditions increase post-release criminal activity

• However, our results could favor the literature that suggests a U-shaped relationship between severity of punishment and future criminal behavior, with an optimal level of punishment minimizing the likelihood

of recidivism (Pinchler and Romer 2011)

• In this line, the legal modification in Uruguay suggests the increase in the level of punishment within the juvenile system seems to be on the downward side of this theoretical “U”

• At the end, this study questions the general perception that the increase in incarceration rates is not an effective public policy and suggests digging further on this issue

Juvenile Incarceration and Crime after ReleaseEvidence from a Harsher Law

Néstor Gandelman

Universidad ORT Uruguay

Ignacio Munyo

Universidad de Montevideo

Universidad de Chile, Santiago, 6 de Julio de 2016

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