Imprisonment and Reoffending

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

Criminology refers to the effect of the experience of punishment on reoffending as specific deterrence. The label implies that the experience should have a chastening effect. However, there are many sound reasons for predicting that the experience of punishment might exacerbate, not reduce reoffending. In this session we report new estimates of the effect of the experience of imprisonment on reoffending and discuss the theoretical and methodological challenges to identifying that effect.

Sub Unit

• Area IV. Criminal Justice Policy and Practice / 43. Prisoner Reentry

Individual Presentations

• Causal Identification, Imprisonment Effects and the Life-Course - Charles Loeffler, University of Pennsylvania

• Effects of length of pre-trial detention and imprisonment on recidivism - Paul Nieuwbeerta, Leiden University; Hilde Wermink, Leiden University; Anja Dirkzwager, NSCR

• Measuring the Effect of the Experience of Incarceration on Reoffending - Daniel Nagin, Carnegie Mellon University; Jose Zubizarreta, Columbia University

Chair

• Daniel Nagin, Carnegie Mellon University