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Does
the Certainty of Arrest Reduce Domestic Violence? Evidence from Mandatory and
Recommended Arrest Laws
( appendices,
detailed
statute descriptions )
Domestic violence
remains a major public policy concern despite two decades of policy
intervention. To eliminate police inaction in response to domestic violence,
many states have passed mandatory arrest laws, which require the police to
arrest abusers when a domestic violence incident is reported. These laws were
justified by a randomized experiment in Minnesota which found that arrests
reduced future violence. This experiment was conducted during a time period
when arrest was optional. Using the FBI Supplementary Homicide Reports, I
find mandatory arrest laws actually increased intimate partner homicides. I
hypothesize that this increase in homicides is due to decreased reporting. I
investigate validity of this reporting hypothesis by examining the effect of
mandatory arrest laws on family homicides where the victim is less often
responsible for reporting. For family homicides, mandatory arrest laws appear
to reduce the number of homicides. This study therefore provides evidence
that these laws may have perverse effects on intimate partner violence,
harming the very people they seek to help.
I
would rather be hanged for a sheep than a lamb: The unintended consequences
of California Three-Strikes law
Strong sentences are
common "tough on crime" tool used to reduce the incentives for
individuals to participate in criminal activity. However, the design of such
policies often ignores other margins along which individuals interested in
participating in crime may adjust. I use California's Three Strikes law to
identify several effects of a large increase in the penalty for a broad set
of crimes. Using criminal records data, I estimate that Three Strikes reduced
participation in criminal activity by 20 percent for second-strike eligible
offenders and a 28 percent decline for third-strike eligible offenders.
However, I find two unintended consequences of the law. First, because Three
Strikes flattened the penalty gradient with respect to severity, criminals
were more likely to commit more violent crimes. Among third-strike eligible
offenders, the probability of committing violent crimes increased by 9
percentage points. Second, because California's law was more
harsh than the laws of other nearby states, Three Strikes had a
"beggar-thy-neighbor" effect increasing the migration of criminals
with second and third-strike eligibility to commit crimes in neighboring
states. The high cost of incarceration combined with the high cost of violent
crime relative to non-violent crime implies that Three Strikes may not be a
cost-effective means of reducing crime.
Not Getting
Their Due Process: An Analysis of Attorney Performance in the Federal
Indigent Defense System
The right to an
equal and fair trial regardless of wealth is a hallmark of American
jurisprudence. To ensure this right, the government pays attorneys to
represent financially needy clients. In the U.S. federal court system,
indigent defendants are represented by either public defenders
who are salaried employees of the court or private attorneys, known as
Criminal Justice Act (CJA) attorneys, who are compensated on an hourly basis.
This study measures differences in performance of these types of attorneys and
explores some potential causes for these differences. Exploiting the use of
random case assignment between the two types of attorneys, an analysis of
federal criminal case level data from 1997-2001 from 51 districts indicates
that public defenders perform significantly better than CJA panel attorneys
in terms of lower conviction rates and sentence lengths. An analysis of data
from three districts linking attorney experience, wages, law school quality
and average caseload suggests that these variables account for over half of
the overall difference in performance. These systematic differences in
performance disproportionately affect minority and immigrant communities and
as such may constitute a civil rights violation under Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act.
Who's
the Fairest in the Land: An Analysis of Jury and Judge Decisionmaking
In recent years the
death penalty has come under increasing scrutiny because of what appears like
disparate sentencing for minorities relative to white. However, some research
suggests that as a fraction of the defendants on death row accurately
represents the distribution of murder arrests nationwide. The question of
whether the bias occurs at the sentencing stage, at some earlier stage, or at
all is an issue of broad concern. Any bias would raise grave concerns about
the procedural fairness of death penalty applications. In attempts to redress
some of these due process concerns, the Supreme Court in Ring v. Arizona
determined that all death penalty sentences must be determined by a jury
rather than a judge. This decision affected death penalty procedures in 13
states and the federal government while leaving 26 states with the death
penalty unaffected. Using this variation in the impact of the decision, I
plan to evaluate how the use of juries versus judges affects the proportion
of minorities that receive the death penalty.
50,000
People a Day: Federal Domestic Violence Service Provision
with L. Sabik
Intimate partner
violence is a serious and preventable health problem affecting more than 30 million
Americans each year. Many victims receive emergency support services from
local domestic violence programs. Despite this, information on the magnitude
and distribution of services these programs provide nationwide is limited. In
November 2006, the first-ever National Census on Domestic Violence Services
was conducted to learn the frequency and correlates of emergency and crisis
intervention services provided by domestic violence programs using safe,
noninvasive collection methods. During the 24-hour survey period, 48,350
individuals used the services of 1,243 primary purpose domestic violence
programs, corresponding to a population rate of 16 people per 100,000
inhabitants. Of the individuals served, 14,518 received emergency shelter,
7,989 received transitional housing and 25,843 received non-residential
services only. Domestic violence programs were unable to meet 5,183 requests
for services that day due to resource constraints. This survey provides the
first national measurement of services provided by local domestic violence
programs and suggest that seven times more individuals are served by domestic
violence programs as compared to victims of violence-related injuries served
on an average day in U.S. emergency rooms.
Does Reducing Transaction Costs in
Household Bargaining Improve Women's Well-being? Evidence from Burundi (with
Guilia Ferrari)
The empowerment of
women within households remains a major issue around the world including in
Africa. We have conducted a study in Burundi coupling discussion sessions
with microfinancing to determine if they enhance the role of women in
decisions regarding household purchases and the reduction of domestic
violence. We compare our findings to that from a published study in South
Africa that combined discussion sessions on life skills and health on
reduction in domestic violence and decisions on economic issues. Both studies
used randomized controlled experiments. Both studies show a trend towards
increases in household authority, with the Burundi study showing statistical
significance. In South Africa there was a large, albeit short lived decrease
in domestic violence. In Burundi there was small reduction but trend suggest
a longer duration. The effects on overall empowerment are small. These
studies suggest that a more sustained use of discussion sessions could be
beneficial. Future research could focus on the longer term effects of the use
of discussion sessions and investigate how the observed impacts can be
sustained in magnitude and duration.
Is
there an 'Emboldenment' Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq
with Jonathan Monten
The Iraq war is
among the most divisive military operations in American political history,
and the George W. Bush administration has not taken kindly to criticism.
Administration supporters have generated controversy by suggesting that
public criticism of its war policies undercut the United States' reputation
for resolve and encouraging attacks on the United States. Opponents claim
that this line of argument is intended to shut down legitimate and necessary
public debate. Using data on insurgent attacks and variation in access to
international news across Iraqi provinces, we identify a possible
"emboldenment" effect by comparing whether statements critical of
the war have a differential impact on the rate of insurgent attacks in areas
with higher and lower access to information about U.S news. This
difference-in-difference approach allows us to isolate the effect of
information about the level of war criticism in the U.S. from the many other
possible sources contributing to variation in insurgent attacks. We find that
in periods immediately after a spike in war-critical statements, the level of
insurgent attacks increases by 5-10 percent. These results suggest that there
is a small but measurable cost to open public debate in the form of higher
attacks in the short-term, and insurgent organizations - even those motivated
by religious or ideological goals - are strategic actors. However, these
costs must be weighed against the gains from open, transparent debate. We
present some suggestive evidence that the unconditional nature of the U.S.
commitment results in underinvestment in security capacity relative to other
domestic capacity by the Iraqi government. The divisive and hostile discourse
by both sides in US political environments may therefore simultaneously
encourage insurgents to challenge the national government and discourage the
national government to take responsibility for the costs and risks of
providing security independent of external support
A Neuroeconomic Analysis of Differing Patterns in Juror
Decisions on Sexual Harassment and Contract Cases
with Joy Hirsch
(draft available upon request)
The judicial system
relies on juries to dispassionately evaluate facts presented at trial to
reach a fair legal decision. In sexual harassment cases, juries are charged
with determining whether the behaviors presented might be perceived as
intimidating, threatening, or offensive. In this adjudication process, jurors
are asked to use a "reasonable woman" standard--as opposed to the
"reasonable person" standard more commonly used in similar
workplace dispute cases. However, there is little evidence to substantiate or
repudiate the assumption by the Supreme Court that juries are able to call
upon their emotional reserves when presented evidence of sexual harassment.
We find a dichotomy in the neurocircuitry employed by mock jurors during
decisions about cases that involve sexual harassment relative to cases that
involve contractual disputes. Harassment cases tended to elicit activity
associated with emotional processes while a control group of contract cases
tended to elicit activity in associated with executive processes. We quantify
the effects of this shift to emotional decisionmaking in terms of juror
awards. Using data court cases from 1997 to 2001, we assign cases into one of
these four categories based on the harassment forms in each case. We find
that different forms of harassment elicit different settlement and award
behaviors.
The Political Economy of Disability Insurance: Effects from
Legal Reforms of Pain Standards
with Giovanni Mastrobuoni, Collegio Carlo Alberto and CeRP
(draft available on request)
The dramatic rise in
the disability insurance roles in the last 20 years has been the subject of
much controversy in both popular and academic circles. While, the
relationship between DI and labor force participation has been the subject of
a growing literature, the mechanism by which this transition from employment
to DI remains unclear. We hypothesize that one mechanism is the state-level
administration of the program which creates a classic principal-agent
problem. This paper uses the increased discretion from legal standards on
pain to analyze the effect of conflict of interests for DDS
agencies---between SSA standards and state gubernatorial political interests.
We find evidence that multi-term governors allow a greater fraction of
applicants than do first term governors. We then develop a model that
illustrates how these differences can be due to they type of monitoring
conducted by the Social Security Administration. We provide additional
evidence supporting this hypothesis in the form of sub-group analysis by
economic and political constraints. Overall, we find evidence that the
monitoring system is counter-productive and encourages politically motivate
usage of critical social insurance programs.
Ongoing Projects
Who Responds to Medical Information? The Implications of
Changing Selection into Breastfeeding, 1950-2000 (with Martha Bailey), May
2008.
Do Special Courts for Sexual Assault Improve Reporting?
Evidence from South Africa
Modeling and Measuring Crime Victim's Reporting Behavior
The Effect of Public Defender Reform on Juvenile Crime
Recidivism: Evidence from Los Angeles
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