American Economic Journal: Applied Economics · 2022 · Giovanni Mastrobuoni、Daniele Terlizzese
Abstract
We estimate the effect on recidivism of replacing time served in a common closed-cell prison with time served in an open-cell one. We deal with the endogenous assignment of inmates to different prison regimes using variation that is driven by nearby prisons’ overcrowding. Switching regimes for a year reduces recidivism by around 6 percentage points. The effects are largest for inmates with low levels of education and are weak for violent and hardened criminals. (JEL K14, K42)