Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Do rehabilitative prison policies work? Evidence from a natural experiment in the Dominican Republic

由于高社会成本和人力资本损失，出狱人员的高犯罪率是决策者非常关注的问题。尽管存在这些担忧，但经济学家并不了解累犯率上升的原因。因此，了解累犯的来源将有助于经济科学以及制定减少累犯的政策。这个博士论文研究项目将调查改造监狱是否降低了监狱释放者的累犯率和劳动力市场参与率。该项目还将调查囚犯一旦被监狱条件所改变，在释放后如何融入并影响他们的社区。该研究将使用来自两种不同监狱系统的实验方法和数据——传统的惩罚系统和现代的改造系统——来为这些问题提供经验证据。执法机构可以获得关于传统监狱和改造监狱释放的囚犯的独特数据集。这个研究项目的结果将有助于政策的发展，使美国的惩教系统更有效率，从而建立美国作为一个全球领导者的刑罚改革。本博士论文研究项目将研究监狱改造对罪犯再犯率、劳动力市场依附以及罪犯社会贡献的影响。pi可以访问从传统监狱和改造监狱释放的囚犯的数据集。本研究将使用两个准实验研究设计项目来确定因果参数。第一个项目使用工具变量方法比较随机分配给法官的个体，这些个体对监禁和监狱类型有不同的偏好，以确定惩罚性监狱或改造监狱的监禁对累犯的因果影响，以及它们之间的差异。第二个项目使用差异中的差异估计策略，利用康复监狱的差异推出来确定额外的康复时间的长期影响。同时被送进改造监狱的刑期较短的人对刑期较长的人来说是一种反事实因为监狱会根据很多因素把人分成同质的群体，但不是时间。这两套估计数将为大规模监狱改革对累犯的影响提供严格的证据。这些信息对美国的政策制定者和监狱官员很重要，因为他们要应对大规模的被监禁人口和当前系统的明显失败。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

High crime rates among those released from prison is of great concern among policy makers because of high social cost and loss of human capital. Despite these concerns, economists do not understand the sources of increased recidivism. Understanding the sources of recidivism will therefore contribute to economic science as well as the formulation of policies to reduce recidivism. This doctoral dissertation research project will investigate whether rehabilitative prisons reduce the rates of recidivism and labor-market participation of prison releasees. The project will also investigate how prisoners, once transformed by their prison conditions, fit into, and affect their communities when they are released. The research will use experimental methods and data from two alternative prison systems---the traditional punitive system and a modern rehabilitative system---to provide empirical evidence on these questions. The PIs have access to unique data sets on prisoners released from traditional prisons and rehabilitative prisons. The results of this research project will contribute to the development of policies to make the U.S. correctional system more efficient and therefore establish the US as a global leader in penal reforms.This doctoral dissertation research project will study the effects of rehabilitative prisons on recidivism rates, labor market attachment of prison releasees, and how releasees contribute to their societies. The PIs have access data sets of prisoners released from traditional and rehabilitative prison. The research will use two quasi-experimental research design projects to identify causal parameters. The first project uses instrumental variables approach to compare individuals randomly assigned to judges with varying preferences for incarceration and prison type to identify the causal effect of incarceration in punitive prisons or rehabilitative prisons on recidivism, and the difference between them. The second project uses a differences-in-differences estimation strategy that exploits the differential rollout of rehabilitative prisons to identify the long-term effects of additional rehabilitative time. Individuals introduced into rehabilitative prisons at the same time with remaining short sentences serve as a counterfactual to those with long remaining sentences because the prisons sort individuals into homogeneous groups across many factors, but not time. Both sets of estimates will provide rigorous evidence on the effects of large-scale prison reform on recidivism. This information is important for US policymakers and prison official as they respond to large-scale incarcerated population and the perceived failure of the current system.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.