Gordon Dahl, University of California, San Diego

Incarceration Spillovers in Criminal and Family Networks

Abstract

Using quasi-random assignment of criminal cases to judges, we estimate large incarceration spillovers in criminal and brother networks. When a defendant is sent to prison, there are 51 and 32 percentage point reductions in the probability his criminal network members and younger brothers will be charged with a crime, respectively, over the ensuing four years. Correlational evidence misleadingly finds small positive effects. These spillovers are of first order importance for policy, as the network reductions in future crimes committed are larger than the direct effect on the incarcerated defendant.

Gordon B. Dahl is a Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego. He is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), a CESifo Research Fellow, and a Fellow of the Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality. Dahl's research interests include Labor Economics and Applied Microeconomics