Truth in Sentencing Efficacy
Truth in Sentencing Research Proposal
Researchers who study the economics of crime are interested in whether specific anti-crime legislation or initiatives can increase the 'cost' of committing criminal acts, thereby reducing crime rates (reviewed by Ross, 2012). The basic premise is that most criminals will use a rational process when deciding when and where to offend and that effective anti-crime efforts will displace criminal activity. For example, implementing Lo-Jack tracking in some states in Mexico caused a shift in car theft to neighboring states lacking Lo-Jack tracking services. In the U.S., the implementation of a 'three-strikes' law in California shifted the criminal activity of offenders with one or two offenses already on record to neighboring states. By comparison, increasing the number of police officers patrolling the streets had little impact on the geographic distribution of criminal activity.
Amanda Ross (2012) examined the impact of truth-in-sentencing (TIS) laws on the geographic distribution of criminal activity within the United States. TIS laws generally minimize or eliminate probation and other considerations that effectively reduce the amount of time an offender spends in prison. The goal is to make sentencing...
When Ross looked at crime distributions after TIS laws were enacted by state legislatures throughout the 1990s, she found that TIS laws had shifted the geographic distribution of crime away from TIS states.
Ross's (2012) research was based on 59 urban municipalities that crossed state lines, thereby eliminating many potential confounding factors. Overall, the municipality located in the TIS state experienced an average crime reduction of 8.7% and the neighboring non-TIS municipality experienced an 8.6% increase in crime. When both states enacted a TIS law then both municipalities experienced an average crime reduction of 14.9%. Rather than simply rest on these results, Ross validated these finding by showing an inverse relationship between crime rates and police expenditures locally.
The findings of Ross suggest that TIS laws represent a cost-effective means for reducing criminal activity, especially when both states enact TIS laws. What Ross ignores is whether TIS laws also increased spending on state corrections due to a geographic shift in criminal activity and longer sentences (reviewed by…
