IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tiu/tiucen/c3337307-7393-4f8d-be64-a443c9616282.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Preventing Crime through Selective Incapacitation

Author

Listed:
  • Vollaard, B.A.

    (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research)

Abstract

Making the length of a prison sentence conditional on an individual’s offense history is shown to be a powerful way of preventing crime. Under a law adopted in the Netherlands in 2001, prolific offenders could be sentenced to a prison term that was some ten times longer than usual. We exploit quasi-experimental variation in the moment of introduction and the frequency of application across 12 urban areas to identify the effect. We find the sentence enhancements to have dramatically reduced theft rates. The size of the crime-reducing effect is found to be subject to sharply diminishing returns.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Vollaard, B.A., 2010. "Preventing Crime through Selective Incapacitation," Discussion Paper 2010-141, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:tiu:tiucen:c3337307-7393-4f8d-be64-a443c9616282
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://pure.uvt.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/1297354/2010-141.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mitchell Polinsky, A. & Rubinfeld, Daniel L., 1991. "A model of optimal fines for repeat offenders," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 291-306, December.
    2. Eric Helland & Alexander Tabarrok, 2007. "Does Three Strikes Deter?: A Nonparametric Estimation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).
    3. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1998. "On offense history and the theory of deterrence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 305-324, September.
    4. Lance Lochner, 2010. "Education Policy and Crime," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 465-515, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. H. Naci Mocan & Turan G. Bali, 2010. "Asymmetric Crime Cycles," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 899-911, November.
    6. Kessler, Daniel P & Levitt, Steven D, 1999. "Using Sentence Enhancements to Distinguish between Deterrence and Incapacitation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 343-363, April.
    7. Emily G. Owens, 2009. "More Time, Less Crime? Estimating the Incapacitative Effect of Sentence Enhancements," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 551-579, August.
    8. Worrall, John L., 2004. "The effect of three-strikes legislation on serious crime in California," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 283-296.
    9. Radha Iyengar, 2008. "I'd rather be Hanged for a Sheep than a Lamb: The Unintended Consequences of 'Three-Strikes' Laws," NBER Working Papers 13784, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Shavell, Steven, 1987. "A Model of Optimal Incapacitation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 107-110, May.
    11. Shepherd, Joanna M, 2002. "Fear of the First Strike: The Full Deterrent Effect of California's Two- and Three-Strikes Legislation," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 159-201, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steven Raphael, 2014. "The New Scarlet Letter? Negotiating the U.S. Labor Market with a Criminal Record," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number nsc.
    2. Luca Zanin & Rosalba Radice & Giampiero Marra, 2013. "Estimating the Effect of Perceived Risk of Crime on Social Trust in the Presence of Endogeneity Bias," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 523-547, November.
    3. Cepeda-Francese, Camilo A. & Ramírez-Álvarez, Aurora A., 2023. "Reforming justice under a security crisis: The case of the criminal justice reform in Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    4. Magnus Lofstrom & Steven Raphael, 2016. "Crime, the Criminal Justice System, and Socioeconomic Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 103-126, Spring.
    5. Hennebel, Veerle & Simper, Richard & Verschelde, Marijn, 2017. "Is there a prison size dilemma? An empirical analysis of output-specific economies of scale," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 262(1), pages 306-321.
    6. Kevin T. Schnepel, 2016. "Economics of Incarceration," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 49(4), pages 515-523, December.
    7. Logan, Matthew W. & Morgan, Mark A. & Long, Joshua S. & Hazelwood, Andrea & Bacigalupo, James, 2022. "More similar than different? Examining prison infractions and recidivism among female and male white-collar offenders," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Paolo Buonanno & Steven Raphael, 2013. "Incarceration and Incapacitation: Evidence from the 2006 Italian Collective Pardon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2437-2465, October.
    9. Laura Jaitman, 2019. "Frontiers in the economics of crime: lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 28(1), pages 1-36, December.
    10. Chan, Jason & Kim, Jin-Hyuk & Wagman, Liad, 2022. "State versus federal wiretap orders: A look at the data," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    11. O’Flaherty, Brendan & Sethi, Rajiv, 2015. "Urban Crime," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1519-1621, Elsevier.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anusua Datta, 2017. "California’s Three Strikes Law Revisited: Assessing the Long-Term Effects of the Law," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(2), pages 225-249, June.
    2. Miceli Thomas J., 2012. "Deterred or Detained? A Unified Model of Criminal Punishment," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-20, March.
    3. Alessandro Barbarino & Giovanni Mastrobuoni, 2014. "The Incapacitation Effect of Incarceration: Evidence from Several Italian Collective Pardons," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 1-37, February.
    4. Benjamin Hansen, 2015. "Punishment and Deterrence: Evidence from Drunk Driving," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1581-1617, April.
    5. Alfred Endres & Bianca Rundshagen, 2012. "Escalating penalties: a supergame approach," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 29-49, March.
    6. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 2007. "The Theory of Public Enforcement of Law," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 403-454, Elsevier.
    7. Estelle, Sarah M. & Phillips, David C., 2018. "Smart sentencing guidelines: The effect of marginal policy changes on recidivism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 270-293.
    8. Thomas J. Miceli, 2009. "Deterrence and Incapacitation Models of Criminal Punishment: Can the Twain Meet?," Working papers 2009-25, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    9. Francesco Drago & Roberto Galbiati & Pietro Vertova, 2009. "The Deterrent Effects of Prison: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(2), pages 257-280, April.
    10. Ross, Amanda, 2012. "Crime, police, and truth-in-sentencing: The impact of state sentencing policy on local communities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 144-152.
    11. Steven N. Durlauf & Daniel S. Nagin, 2010. "The Deterrent Effect of Imprisonment," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 43-94, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Thomas J. Miceli, 2008. "Deterrence, Incapacitation, and Repeat Offenders," Working papers 2008-44, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    13. David S. Abrams, 2012. "Estimating the Deterrent Effect of Incarceration Using Sentencing Enhancements," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 32-56, October.
    14. Jonathan Klick & Alexander Tabarrok, 2010. "Police, Prisons, and Punishment: The Empirical Evidence on Crime Deterrence," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Douglas N. VanDerwerken & Jacek Rothert & Brice M. Nguelifack, 2018. "Does the Threat of Suspension Curb Dangerous Behavior in Soccer? A Case Study From the Premier League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(6), pages 759-785, August.
    16. Clotilde Mahe & Sergio Parra-Cely, 2020. "Isolating the incapacitative effect of social distancing on crime: Evidence from Ecuador’s Covid-19 lockdown," DEM Discussion Paper Series 20-23, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    17. Aperjis, Christina & Zeckhauser, Richard J. & Miao, Yali, 2014. "Variable temptations and black mark reputations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 70-90.
    18. Lisa R. Anderson & Gregory DeAngelo & Winand Emons & Beth Freeborn & Hannes Lang, 2017. "Penalty Structures And Deterrence In A Two-Stage Model: Experimental Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1833-1867, October.
    19. Thomas J. Miceli & Kathleen Segerson & Dietrich Earnhart, 2022. "The role of experience in deterring crime: A theory of specific versus general deterrence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(4), pages 1833-1853, October.
    20. Miceli Thomas J. & Bucci Catherine, 2005. "A Simple Theory of Increasing Penalties for Repeat Offenders," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 71-80, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    prolific offenders; incarceration; selective incapacitation; three strikes laws;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tiu:tiucen:c3337307-7393-4f8d-be64-a443c9616282. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Richard Broekman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://center.uvt.nl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.