The effectiveness of prison for reducing drug offender recidivism: a regression discontinuity analysis

An enduring legacy of the 1980s “war on drugs” is the increased use of imprisonment for drug offenders. Advocates anticipated, in part, that prison is more effective than community sanctions in reducing recidivism. Despite the contribution of drug offender incarceration to prison growth nationally,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mitchell, Ojmarrh (Author)
Contributors: Mears, Daniel P. ; Cochran, Joshua C. ; Bales, William D.
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2017
In: Journal of experimental criminology
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Keywords:
Drug crime
Prison
Recidivism
Regression discontinuity design
Specific deterrence
Description
Summary:An enduring legacy of the 1980s “war on drugs” is the increased use of imprisonment for drug offenders. Advocates anticipated, in part, that prison is more effective than community sanctions in reducing recidivism. Despite the contribution of drug offender incarceration to prison growth nationally, and debates about whether this approach should be curtailed, only limited rigorous research exists that evaluates the effect of imprisonment on drug offender recidivism. To address this gap, this paper uses sentencing and recidivism data from a cohort of individuals convicted of felony drug offenses in Florida to examine the effect of imprisonment—as compared to community sanctions—on recidivism.
ISSN:1572-8315
DOI:10.1007/s11292-017-9282-6