Breaking the Inequality-Crime Cycle: Biases in Police Decisions, 'What Works' in Prison, and Firm Demand for Workers with Criminal Records

Economic inequality across the population implies vastly unequal opportunities in many dimensions that can impact an individuals chance of entering the justice system.

One such channel via which this can occur even holding criminal behavior constant is unequal treatment by agents of the justice system (e.g. police). The consequences of such partiality is not trivial: once in the system, it is hard to get out.

And to the extent that convictions and sanctions result in worse outcomes (e.g. employment) for offenders and/or family members, the cycle of crime and economic inequality will perpetuate for current and future generations.

This program pushes forward the evidence base on three channels (police, prisons, firms) through which this cycle can be broken. Part 1 aims to measure and study the adoption of implicit bias training programs by police agencies.

Despite such programs being a go-to response of agencies accused of bias, there is almost no knowledge on how/whether they impact officer behavior. Part 2 addresses the knowledge gap on what (specifically) works in prison.

First, we will study the unintended impacts of two Swedish sanction reforms onto untreated populations. (i) Does more time in prison have spill-over effects for family members? (ii) Did the introduction of electronic monitoring impact the conditions and outcomes of ineligible offenders left behind in prison?

Second, we will open the black-box of prison healthcare to study how in-prison treatment (diagnoses, medication, vaccines, programs) impacts post-release health, medication adherence, and crime.Part 3 aims to further our understanding of the employment opportunities or lack thereof for workers with criminal records (WCR).

We will use Swedish registers to study (i) the extent to which WCR are sorted across firms and the determinants of a firms demand for WCR, (ii) selection of WCR into self-employment, and (iii) how an offenders social networks impact firm hiring decisions.