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Research papers on Criminal justice reform

Recent and highly-cited academic work on criminal justice reform, gathered from Semantic Scholar, CrossRef and OpenAlex.

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  1. Incarceration, Recidivism, and Employment

    Manudeep Bhuller, Gordon B. Dahl, Katrine Vellesen Løken, et al. · 2019 · Journal of Political Economy · 313 citations

    Using a random judge design and panel data from Norway, we estimate that imprisonment discourages further criminal behavior, with reoffense probabilities falling by 29 percentage points and criminal charges dropping by 11 over a 5-year period. Ordinary least squares mistakenly reaches the opposite conclusion. The decline is driven by individuals not working prior to incarceration; these individuals increase participation in employment programs and raise their future employment and earnings. Previously employed individuals experience lasting negative employment effects. These findings demonstrate that time spent in prison with a focus on rehabilitation can be preventive for a large segment of

  2. Risk Assessment in Criminal Sentencing

    John Monahan, Jennifer L. Skeem · 2015 · Annual Review of Clinical Psychology · 256 citations

    The past several years have seen a surge of interest in using risk assessment in criminal sentencing, both to reduce recidivism by incapacitating or treating high-risk offenders and to reduce prison populations by diverting low-risk offenders from prison. We begin by sketching jurisprudential theories of sentencing, distinguishing those that rely on risk assessment from those that preclude it. We then characterize and illustrate the varying roles that risk assessment may play in the sentencing process. We clarify questions regarding the various meanings of "risk" in sentencing and the appropriate time to assess the risk of convicted offenders. We conclude by addressing four principal problem

  3. Cumulative Disadvantage in the American Criminal Justice System

    Megan C. Kurlychek, Brian D. Johnson · 2019 · Annual Review of Criminology · 248 citations

    Research on inequality in punishment has a long and storied history, yet the overwhelming focus has been on episodic disparity in isolated stages of criminal case processing (e.g., arrest, prosecution, or sentencing). Although theories of cumulative disadvantage exist in criminology, they are seldom adapted to account for treatment in the criminal justice system. We provide an overview of the concept of cumulative disadvantage in the life course and review evidence on the development of cumulative disadvantages across stages of the criminal justice system. In doing so, we appraise the empirical research on policing, prosecution, and the courts and consider how these largely separate bodies o

  5. Legitimacy and Criminal Justice: The Benefits of Self-Regulation

    Tom R. Tyler · 2009 · 186 citations

    In this lecture I argue for the value of a self-regulatory approach to law and criminal justice. I do so by first describing and critiquing the dominant approachto regulation in use today: deterrence. I suggest that in practice this model is costly and minimally effective in securing compliance with the law and motivating the acceptance of decisions made by police officers and judges. I then outline a different, self- regulatory model which focuses on engaging people's values as a basis for motivating voluntary deference to the law. I review empirical research suggesting that this strategy is both viable and more desirable than current sanction-based approaches. My argument is that this appr

  6. THE JUVENILE PENALTY: A COMPARISON OF JUVENILE AND YOUNG ADULT SENTENCING OUTCOMES IN CRIMINAL COURT*

    Megan C. Kurlychek, Brian D. Johnson · 2004 · Criminology · 158 citations

    This study uses criminal court data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS) to investigate the sentencing of juvenile offenders processed in adult criminal court by comparing their sentencing outcomes to those of young adult offenders in similar situations. Because the expanded juvenile exclusion and transfer policies of the 1990s have led to an increase in the number of juveniles convicted in adult courts, we argue that it is critical to better understand the judicial decision making processes involved. We introduce competitive hypotheses on the relative leniency or severity of sentencing outcomes for transferred juveniles and interpret our results with the focal concerns theor

  7. The Impact of Incarceration on Recidivism

    Charles Loeffler, Daniel S. Nagin · 2021 · Annual Review of Criminology · 141 citations

    The US prison population stands at 1.43 million persons, with an additional 740,000 persons in local jails. Nearly all will eventually return to society. This review examines the available evidence on how the experience of incarceration is likely to impact the probability that formerly incarcerated individuals will reoffend. Our focus is on two types of studies, those based on the random assignments of cases to judges, called judge instrumental-variable studies, and those based on discontinuities in sentence severity in sentencing grids, called regression discontinuity studies. Both types of studies are designed to account for selection bias in nonexperimental estimates of the impact of inca

  8. Algorithms in the Criminal Justice System: Assessing the Use of Risk Assessments in Sentencing

    Danielle Leah Kehl, Samuel Ari Kessler · 2017 · Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) · 132 citations

    Risk assessment tools are increasingly being incorporated into all aspects of the criminal justice system. This paper focuses on the use of these tools in the sentencing process, a relatively recent development which raises fundamental legal and ethical questions about fairness, accountability, and transparency. The paper provides an overview of these issues and questions for further research that can help local policymakers who are currently implementing or considering implementing similar systems in their jurisdiction.

  9. Intuitions of Justice: Implications for Criminal Law and Justice Policy

    Paul H. Robinson, John M. Darley · 2007 · 101 citations

    Recent social science research suggests that many if not most judgements about criminal liability and punishment for serious wrongdoing are intuitional rather than reasoned. Further, such intuitions of justice are nuanced and widely shared, even though they concern matters that seem quite complex and subjective. While people may debate the source of these intuitions, it seems clear that, whatever their source, it must be one that is insulated from the influence of much of human experience because, if it were not, one would see differences in intuitions reflecting the vast differences in human existence across demographics and societies.\nThis article explores the serious implications of this

  10. A systematic review of criminal recidivism rates worldwide: 3-year update

    Denis Yukhnenko, Shivpriya Sridhar, Seena Fazel · 2020 · Wellcome Open Research · 86 citations

    <ns4:p> <ns4:bold>Background:</ns4:bold> Comparing recidivism rates between countries may provide useful information about the relative effectiveness of different criminal justice policies. A previous 2015 review identified criminal recidivism data for 18 countries and found little consistency in outcome definitions and time periods. We aimed to update recidivism rates in prisoners internationally. </ns4:p> <ns4:p> <ns4:bold>Methods:</ns4:bold> We conducted a systematic review of criminal recidivism rates in prisoners and followed PRISMA guidelines. Using five bibliographic indexes, we carried out non-country-specific and targeted searches for 50 countries with the largest total prison popul

  11. Snapping Back: Food Stamp Bans and Criminal Recidivism

    Cody Tuttle · 2019 · American Economic Journal Economic Policy · 81 citations

    I estimate the effect of access to food stamps on criminal recidivism. In 1996, a federal welfare reform imposed a lifetime ban from food stamps on convicted drug felons. Florida modified this ban, restricting it to drug traffickers who commit their offense on or after August 23, 1996. I exploit this sharp cutoff in a regression discontinuity design and find that the ban increases recidivism among drug traffickers. The increase is driven by financially motivated crimes, suggesting that the cut in benefits causes ex-convicts to return to crime to make up for the lost transfer income. (JEL H75, I38, K42)

  12. Savry Risk Assessment in Violent Dutch Adolescents

    Henny P.B. Lodewijks, Theo A.H. Doreleijers, Corine De Ruiter · 2008 · Criminal Justice and Behavior · 60 citations

    This study examines the predictive validity of the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) by examining relationships between SAVRY scores and violent reoffending during a 3-year period after sentencing. Two types of sentences were studied: a mandatory treatment order ( N = 77) and a juvenile prison sentence ( N = 40). The predictive validity of the SAVRY was significant for the two types of sentences. The predictive validity of the unstructured clinical judgment proved to be not significant. Support was found for the hypothesis that the juvenile court's sentence (treatment versus detention) might have been influenced by the unstructured clinical risk assessment of the mental

  13. The President's Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform

    Barack Obama · 2017 · Lincoln (University of Nebraska) · 59 citations

    Criminal justice is a complex system, administered at all levels of government and shaped by a range of actors. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of so many in my Administration, the bipartisan push for reform from federal, state, and local officials, and the work of so many committed citizens outside government, America has made important strides. We have reduced overlong sentences for offenders and removed barriers for those with criminal records. We have made progress in helping people, especially young people, avoid getting entangled in the justice system in the first place. This Commentary talks about those achievements — and the tools Presidents can use to effect meaningful change throug

  15. Ghosting the Machine: Judicial Resistance to a Recidivism Risk Assessment Instrument

    Dasha Pruss · 2023 · Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency · 35 citations

    Recidivism risk assessment instruments are presented as an ‘evidence-based’ strategy for criminal justice reform – a way of increasing consistency in sentencing, replacing cash bail, and reducing mass incarceration. In practice, however, AI-centric reforms can simply add another layer to the sluggish, labyrinthine machinery of bureaucratic systems and are met with internal resistance. Through a community-informed interview-based study of 23 criminal judges and other criminal legal bureaucrats in Pennsylvania, I find that judges overwhelmingly ignore a recently-implemented sentence risk assessment instrument, which they disparage as “useless,” “worthless,” “boring,” “a waste of time,” “a non-

  18. OxRec model for assessing risk of recidivism: ethics

    Derek W Braverman, Samuel N Doernberg, C. Runge, et al. · 2016 · The lancet. Psychiatry · 5 citations

    Concerned by the increasing use of actuarial risk assessments in our criminal justice system and worldwide, we read with interest the Article (June, 2016)1 by Seena Fazel and colleagues presenting the derivation and validation of one such model, OxRec, in Sweden. Typically, these tools use a variety of factors, such as criminal, medical, and demographic information, to calculate an individual’s risk of either recidivism generally or committing specific, usually violent, crimes.2 Assessments are then used to set sentences, determine conditions and time of parole, and target post-release interventions, among other applications depending on local laws.2,3 Furthermore, the Sentencing Reform and

  20. Short-Term Imprisonment of Independence Penalty from the Perspective of Punishment Objectives as Criminal Law Reform in Indonesia

    Ratri Novita Erdianti, Bagas Ranendra Pratama, Muhamad Helmi Md Said · 2025 · Indonesia Law Reform Journal · 4 citations

    This article examines the effectiveness of short-term imprisonment in Indonesia, focusing on its inherent limitations such as prisonisation, overcrowding, and persistent recidivism. Employing a normative juridical approach supported by correctional statistics, the study evaluates whether short custodial sentences fulfil the intended purposes of punishment. The findings indicate that such sanctions rarely deter offenders, fail to support rehabilitation, and hinder social reintegration, thereby exposing a significant gap between the theoretical aims of criminal law and the realities of correctional practice. The analysis highlights how reliance on short-term imprisonment exacerbates systemic c

  21. Reprogramming Recidivism: The First Step Act and Algorithmic Prediction of Risk

    Amy B. Cyphert · 2021 · SSRN Electronic Journal · 4 citations

    The First Step Act, a seemingly miraculous bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, was signed into law in late 2018. The Act directed the Attorney General to develop a risk and needs assessment tool that would effectively determine who would be eligible for early release based on an algorithmic prediction of recidivism. The resulting tool—PATTERN—was released in the summer of 2019 and quickly updated in January of 2020. It was immediately put to use in an unexpected manner, helping to determine who was eligible for early release during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now the latest in a growing list of algorithmic recidivism prediction tools, tools that first came to mainstream notice with cri

  23. Criminal Justice Reform: Examining Strategies for Reducing Mass Incarceration and Promoting Rehabilitation

    V. Chatterjee · 2024 · Indian Journal of Law · 2 citations

    The pressing issue of mass incarceration and explores strategies for criminal justice reform aimed at reducing incarceration rates and promoting rehabilitation. It highlights the social, economic, and human costs of mass incarceration and discusses the need for evidence-based policies and innovative approaches to address systemic issues within the criminal justice system. Mass incarceration has reached unprecedented levels in many countries, including the United States, where it has disproportionately impacted communities of color and contributed to cycles of poverty, inequality, and recidivism. The abstract discusses the various factors driving mass incarceration, such as mandatory minimum

  24. The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Recidivism Studies

    Nora V. Demleitner · 2020 · Federal Sentencing Reporter · 2 citations

    Recidivism is now the guiding principle of punishment and has become the new hallmark of criminal justice reform, as reflected in the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s recidivism project. So far, the Commission has issued three reports in 2020 alone, which outline the parameters within which “safe” criminal justice reform can proceed. Yet the overly broad definition of “recidivism” and the focus on easily measurable and static risk factors, such as prior criminal record, create a feedback loop. The Commission’s work should come with a warning label. Its recidivism studies should not be consumed on their own. Instead, they must be read in conjunction with U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services re

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