BishtRef
Articles Journals Publishers Authors Subjects Most Cited New Papers Year Stats Open Access
journal article Feb 01, 2018

The Effects of Pre-Trial Detention on Conviction, Future Crime, and Employment: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges

Will Dobbie Jacob Goldin Crystal S. Yang
American Economic Review Vol. 108 No. 2 pp. 201-240 · American Economic Association
View at Publisher Save 10.1257/aer.20161503
Abstract
Over 20 percent of prison and jail inmates in the United States are currently awaiting trial, but little is known about the impact of pretrial detention on defendants. This paper uses the detention tendencies of quasi-randomly assigned bail judges to estimate the causal effects of pretrial detention on subsequent defendant outcomes. Using data from administrative court and tax records, we find that pretrial detention significantly increases the probability of conviction, primarily through an increase in guilty pleas. Pretrial detention has no net effect on future crime, but decreases formal sector employment and the receipt of employment- and tax-related government benefits. These results are consistent with (i) pretrial detention weakening defendants' bargaining positions during plea negotiations and (ii) a criminal conviction lowering defendants' prospects in the formal labor market. (JEL J23, J31, J65, K41, K42)
Topics

No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →

References
39
[3]
Agan Amanda Y University of Michigan Law and Economics Research Paper (2016)
[6]
Identification of Causal Effects Using Instrumental Variables

Joshua D. Angrist, Guido W. Imbens, Donald B. Rubin

Journal of the American Statistical Association 10.1080/01621459.1996.10476902
[8]
Ares Charles E New York University Law Review (1963)
[11]
Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors

A. Colin Cameron, Jonah B. Gelbach, Douglas L. Miller

Review of Economics and Statistics 10.1162/rest.90.3.414
[22]
Goldkamp John S Justice System Journal (1980)
[23]
Crime Rates and Local Labor Market Opportunities in the United States: 1979–1997

Eric D. Gould, Bruce A. Weinberg, David B. Mustard

Review of Economics and Statistics 10.1162/003465302317331919
[36]
Identifying the Effect of Unemployment on Crime

Steven Raphael, Rudolf Winter‐Ebmer

The Journal of Law and Economics 10.1086/320275
[38]
A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments

James H Stock, Jonathan H Wright, Motohiro Yogo

Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 10.1198/073500102288618658
Metrics
433
Citations
39
References
Details
Published
Feb 01, 2018
Vol/Issue
108(2)
Pages
201-240
Authors
W
Will Dobbie

Industrial Relations Section, Princeton University, Louis A. Simpson International Building, Princeton, NJ 08544, and NBER (email: )

J
Jacob Goldin

Stanford Law School, William H. Neukom Building, 559 Nathan Abbot Way, Stanford, CA 94305 (email: )

C
Crystal S. Yang

Harvard Law School, Griswold Building, Cambridge, MA 02138, and NBER (email: )

Cite This Article
Will Dobbie, Jacob Goldin, Crystal S. Yang (2018). The Effects of Pre-Trial Detention on Conviction, Future Crime, and Employment: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges. American Economic Review, 108(2), 201-240. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20161503
Related

You May Also Like

The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson · 2001

7,244 citations

Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle

James E Anderson, Eric van Wincoop · 2003

4,790 citations

Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects

Charles A Holt, Susan K Laury · 2002

4,408 citations

Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects

Clément de Chaisemartin, Xavier D’Haultfœuille · 2020

4,084 citations

ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition

Gary E Bolton, Axel Ockenfels · 2000

3,734 citations