American Law and Economics Review Advance Access originally published online on December 26, 2008
American Law and Economics Review 2009 11(1):209-248; doi:10.1093/aler/ahn016
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Crime and Expected Punishment: Changes in Perceptions at the Age of Criminal Majority
University of Maryland
Send correspondence to: Randi Hjalmarsson, University of Maryland, School of Public Policy, 4131 Van Munching Hall, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA; E-mail: rhjalmar{at}umd.edu.
JEL Classification: D01, K42
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Abstract |
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This paper assesses whether perceived punishment severity changes discontinuously when an individual becomes an adult in the eyes of the courts. I find that the perceived chance of jail increases by 5.2 percentage points at the age of criminal majority, which is over and above the general effect of aging. The magnitude of this subjective change in the chance of jail at the age of majority appears to be substantially smaller than that found in objective data. Finally, a reduced-form analysis of whether self-reported criminal behavior changes discontinuously at the age of criminal majority finds little consistent evidence of deterrence.
I would like to thank John Donohue, Bill Evans, Erik Hjalmarsson, Jens Ludwig, Justin McCrary, Daniel Nagin, Peter Reuter, Stephen Ross, and Seth Sanders as well as two anonymous referees and seminar participants at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Economics at Stockholm University, the 2007 Crime and Population Dynamics Summer Workshop, the 2007 Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, 2007 ASC meetings, 2007 North American Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society, 2007 European Economic Association meetings, and 2007 APPAM meetings for helpful feedback. This research was conducted with restricted access to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the BLS. Any remaining errors are my own.