Estimating the Effects of Long Spells of Imprisonment

• In Event: Assessing Interventions across the Life Course

Abstract

Scholars have long wondered about the life-course effects of sending individuals to prison for extended periods of time. However, the absence of a plausible comparison group for the long-term imprisoned has frustrated efforts to understand both the mechanical and behavioral effects of long-term imprisonment at the individual level. Instead, most quantitative estimates of the effects of imprisonment have compared individuals at the margin of imprisonment and non-imprisonment or imprisonment and a slightly longer period of imprisonment. Using a counterfactual formed by variations in sentence severity for near-equivalent cases, this paper estimates the life-course effects of longer spells of imprisonment. Implications for theory are discussed.

Author

• Charles Loeffler, University of Pennsylvania