Using Michigan Sentencing Guidelines to Estimate Effects of Incarceration and Probation on Reoffending and Employment

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The dramatic increase in the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. over the last three decades raises critical questions regarding the effects of incarceration on criminal behavior and economic opportunity. Empirical research on the impact of prison vs. alternative sanctions like probation often lacks a clear causal interpretation because differences in outcomes between offenders sentenced to prison/jail vs. probation, even for the same offense, may be due to pre-existing and unmeasured differences between these groups that affect both the sentencing decision and the outcome under study. The proposed research aims to provide plausibly causal estimates of the effects of incarceration in prison compared to jail or probation on recidivism and employment using a pair of natural experiments based on sentencing guidelines in Michigan. One design relies on the random assignment of judges to compare offenders who are given different sentences due only to the judge to which they were assigned. The other design exploits discontinuities that emerge from the ways that offenders are officially scored on the two sentencing guidelines variables ? criminal history and offense severity. This analysis compares the outcomes of offenders with very similar scores on either/both sentencing variable(s) who are nonetheless exposed to dramatically different probabilities of incarceration because they are slightly under or over threshold values of each variable. Both designs restrict comparisons to individuals who are eligible for the same types of sentences and who are therefore on the policy margin between prison and alternative sanctions. This project will provide new evidence for policy-makers and actors in the criminal justice system that could inform future decisions on the appropriateness of custodial vs. non-custodial sanctions.