RT Article
T1 Estimating the Number of Crimes Averted by Incapacitation: An Information Theoretic Approach
JF Journal of quantitative criminology
VO 23
IS 4
SP 355
OP 375
A1 Bhati, Avinash Singh
LA English
YR 2007
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1764277244
AB This paper presents an information theoretic approach for estimating the number of crimes averted by incapacitation. It first develops models of the criminal history accumulation process of a sample of prison releasees using their official recorded arrest histories prior to incarceration. The models yield individual offending trajectories that are then used to compute the number of crimes these releasees could reasonably have been expected to commit had they not been incarcerated—the counterfactual of interest. The models also afford the opportunity to conduct a limited set of policy simulations. The data reveal a fair amount of variation among individuals both in terms of the number of crimes averted by their incarceration and the responsiveness of these estimates to longer incarceration terms. Estimates were found not to vary substantially across demographic groups defined by offender race, gender, or ethnicity; variations across states and offense types were more pronounced. Implications of the findings and promising avenues for future research are discussed.
K1 Individual offending trajectories
K1 Information theory
K1 Incapacitation
DO 10.1007/s10940-007-9034-2