Truth in Sentencing, Incentives and Recidivism

Abstract

Truth in Sentencing laws eliminate discretion in prison release. This decreases the incentive for rehabilitative effort among prisoners. I use a regression discontinuity design to exploit a change in these incentives created by the introduction of TIS in Arizona. Before prison, I find that sentences were reduced by 20% for TIS offenders. Further, I find that rule infractions increased by 22% to 55% and education enrolment fell by 24%. After release, I find offenders were 4.8 p.p. more likely to reoffend. I further find that recidivism and infractions effects are largest among drug and violent offenders. Finally, I show that the reduction in sentences resulted in a broad equalization of time served at the cutoff, which indicates that the removal of early-release incentives by TIS was the main mechanism driving results.

Keywords: crime, deterrence, prison, Truth in Sentencing, recidivism

JEL Classification: H76, K14, K42