I study criminal street gangs using new data that describes the geospatial distribution of gang territory in Chicago and its evolution over a 15-year period. Using an event study design, I show that city blocks entered by gangs experience sharp increases in the number of reported batteries (6%), narcotics violations (18.5%), weapons violations (9.8%), incidents of prostitution (51.9%), and criminal trespassing (19.6%). I also find a sharp reduction in the number of reported robberies (-8%). The findings cannot be explained by pre-existing trends in crime, changes in police surveillance, crime displacement, exposure to public housing demolitions, reporting effects, or demographic trends. Taken together, the evidence suggests that gangs cause small increases in violence in highly localized areas as a result of conflict over illegal markets. I also find evidence that gangs cause reductions in median property values (-$8,436.9) and household income (-$1,866.8). Motivated by these findings, I explore the relationship between the industrial organization of the black market and the supply of criminal activity. I find that gangs that are more internally fractured or operate in more competitive environments tend to generate more crime. This finding is inconsistent with simple, market-based models of criminal behavior, suggesting an important role for behavioral factors and social interactions in the production of gang violence.
{"title":"Competition in the Black Market: Estimating the Causal Effect of Gangs in Chicago","authors":"Bravo Center Working Paper Series, Jesse Bruhn","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3837695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3837695","url":null,"abstract":"I study criminal street gangs using new data that describes the geospatial distribution of gang territory in Chicago and its evolution over a 15-year period. Using an event study design, I show that city blocks entered by gangs experience sharp increases in the number of reported batteries (6%), narcotics violations (18.5%), weapons violations (9.8%), incidents of prostitution (51.9%), and criminal trespassing (19.6%). I also find a sharp reduction in the number of reported robberies (-8%). The findings cannot be explained by pre-existing trends in crime, changes in police surveillance, crime displacement, exposure to public housing demolitions, reporting effects, or demographic trends. Taken together, the evidence suggests that gangs cause small increases in violence in highly localized areas as a result of conflict over illegal markets. I also find evidence that gangs cause reductions in median property values (-$8,436.9) and household income (-$1,866.8). Motivated by these findings, I explore the relationship between the industrial organization of the black market and the supply of criminal activity. I find that gangs that are more internally fractured or operate in more competitive environments tend to generate more crime. This finding is inconsistent with simple, market-based models of criminal behavior, suggesting an important role for behavioral factors and social interactions in the production of gang violence.","PeriodicalId":223837,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Criminal Law (Public Law - Crime) (Topic)","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128109102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article defends Justice Neil Gorsuch’s suggestion that the Federal Analogue Act (“Analog Act”), a statute criminalizing all substances “substantially similar” to Schedule I and II narcotics, should be voided for vagueness using the same rationale employed by Johnson v. United States. This article also explores alternative rationale sfor voiding the statute as unconstitutionally vague. Whether under Johnson or traditional void for vagueness doctrine, the Analog Act fails to satisfy criminal due process requirements. In its attempt to draft a law broad enough to prospectively criminalize all possible future narcotics, Congress created a statute so vague as to prevent any advance knowledge of the substances criminalized while also leaving every substance in a superposition of legal states as both legal and illegal. “Substantially similar” possesses no statutory or scientific definition, leading juries to routinely reach opposite conclusions on the same substance’s legality and depriving defendants of advance notice. No scienter requirement cures this vagueness. In McFadden v. United States, the Supreme Court’s attempt to resolve the decades’ old scienter circuit split effectively opened the permissible range of scienter so wide as to permit prosecutions for mundane substances: possessing chocolate while knowing it contains a controlled substance analog permits prosecution for methamphetamine possession. The Analog Act’s vagueness and narrow scope also frustrate prosecutions for even the most dangerous analogs, a failure hobbling law enforcement and directly contributing to the proliferation of synthetic cannabis, the MDMA-like “bath salts,” fentanyl analogs, and the coming crisis of unregulated benzodiazepines. Yet at the same time the Analog Act’s great breadth threatens the emerging hemp industry by criminalizing CBD and other cannabinoids intended by Congress to be exempt from criminal restrictions. As illustrated by Congress’s synthetic cannabis legislation and the DEA’s categorical ban on fentanyl analogs, the Analog Act has long outlived its marginal value as flexible modern substance-specific prohibitions protect against emerging psychoactive substances without trampling constitutional protections.
本文为大法官尼尔·戈萨奇(Neil Gorsuch)的建议辩护，即《联邦模拟物法》(“模拟物法”)是一项将所有与附表1和附表2麻醉品“本质上相似”的物质定为犯罪的法规，应该使用与约翰逊诉美国案相同的理由，因其模糊性而无效。本文还探讨了将该法规视为违宪模糊而无效的其他理由。无论是在约翰逊还是传统的模糊无效原则下，《类比法》都未能满足刑事正当程序的要求。国会试图起草一项足够宽泛的法律，以便在未来将所有可能的麻醉品定为刑事犯罪，但却制定了一项含糊不清的法规，以防止人们事先了解被定为刑事犯罪的物质，同时也将每一种物质置于合法和非法的叠加状态中。“实质上相似”没有法律或科学定义，导致陪审团对同一物质的合法性经常得出相反的结论，并剥夺了被告的提前通知。没有任何科学的要求能够纠正这种模糊性。在麦克法登诉美国(McFadden v. United States)一案中，最高法院试图解决几十年来一直存在的科学巡回诉讼分歧，有效地扩大了科学的允许范围，以至于允许对普通物质提起诉讼:在知道巧克力含有受控物质的情况下，允许对持有甲基苯丙胺提起诉讼。《类似物法》的模糊和狭窄范围也阻碍了对最危险的类似物的起诉，这一失败阻碍了执法，并直接导致了合成大麻、类似mdma的“浴盐”、芬太尼类似物的扩散，以及即将到来的不受监管的苯二氮卓类药物的危机。然而，与此同时，《模拟法案》的巨大广度威胁到新兴的大麻产业，因为它将CBD和国会打算豁免刑事限制的其他大麻素定为刑事犯罪。正如国会的合成大麻立法和DEA对芬太尼类似物的绝对禁令所表明的那样，《类似物法》早已失去了它的边际价值，因为它是灵活的现代物质特定禁令，可以防止新兴的精神活性物质，而不会践踏宪法的保护。
{"title":"Voiding the Analogue Act","authors":"Andrew Fels","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3736304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3736304","url":null,"abstract":"This article defends Justice Neil Gorsuch’s suggestion that the Federal Analogue Act (“Analog Act”), a statute criminalizing all substances “substantially similar” to Schedule I and II narcotics, should be voided for vagueness using the same rationale employed by Johnson v. United States. This article also explores alternative rationale sfor voiding the statute as unconstitutionally vague. \u0000 \u0000Whether under Johnson or traditional void for vagueness doctrine, the Analog Act fails to satisfy criminal due process requirements. In its attempt to draft a law broad enough to prospectively criminalize all possible future narcotics, Congress created a statute so vague as to prevent any advance knowledge of the substances criminalized while also leaving every substance in a superposition of legal states as both legal and illegal. “Substantially similar” possesses no statutory or scientific definition, leading juries to routinely reach opposite conclusions on the same substance’s legality and depriving defendants of advance notice. No scienter requirement cures this vagueness. In McFadden v. United States, the Supreme Court’s attempt to resolve the decades’ old scienter circuit split effectively opened the permissible range of scienter so wide as to permit prosecutions for mundane substances: possessing chocolate while knowing it contains a controlled substance analog permits prosecution for methamphetamine possession. \u0000 \u0000The Analog Act’s vagueness and narrow scope also frustrate prosecutions for even the most dangerous analogs, a failure hobbling law enforcement and directly contributing to the proliferation of synthetic cannabis, the MDMA-like “bath salts,” fentanyl analogs, and the coming crisis of unregulated benzodiazepines. Yet at the same time the Analog Act’s great breadth threatens the emerging hemp industry by criminalizing CBD and other cannabinoids intended by Congress to be exempt from criminal restrictions. \u0000 \u0000As illustrated by Congress’s synthetic cannabis legislation and the DEA’s categorical ban on fentanyl analogs, the Analog Act has long outlived its marginal value as flexible modern substance-specific prohibitions protect against emerging psychoactive substances without trampling constitutional protections.","PeriodicalId":223837,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Criminal Law (Public Law - Crime) (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130193388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
As a guiding principle of incarceration, prisons should aim to maintain safe and rehabilitative environments. The key contextual factors that undergird such environments are access to purposeful activities and humane conditions of confinement. Independent authoritative reviews conducted by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) of the Council of Europe document the conditions of prison life in Sweden and England, permitting an assessment of these prison systems at three junctures: 2003, 2015-16, and 2019. The Swedish prison system, in contrast to its counterpart in England, addressed external criticisms in responsive ways, an instance of mature coping at the organizational level that demonstrates replicable policies promoting mature coping among individual prisoners
{"title":"Coping and Corrections: A Comparative Assessment of Individual and Organizational Coping in Prisons in Sweden and England","authors":"Hayley Carlisle, R. Johnson","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3742487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3742487","url":null,"abstract":"As a guiding principle of incarceration, prisons should aim to maintain safe and rehabilitative environments. The key contextual factors that undergird such environments are access to purposeful activities and humane conditions of confinement. Independent authoritative reviews conducted by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) of the Council of Europe document the conditions of prison life in Sweden and England, permitting an assessment of these prison systems at three junctures: 2003, 2015-16, and 2019. The Swedish prison system, in contrast to its counterpart in England, addressed external criticisms in responsive ways, an instance of mature coping at the organizational level that demonstrates replicable policies promoting mature coping among individual prisoners","PeriodicalId":223837,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Criminal Law (Public Law - Crime) (Topic)","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123994201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs) face unique challenges in protecting their intellectual property (IP). Potential theft of trade secrets is a key feature of these challenges, which arises often in the context of disputes related to employee mobility. Despite the risks these challenges pose, SMEs often confront significant resource barriers in protecting themselves from trade secret theft. The passage of a recent criminal law by the Canadian federal government, section 391 of the Criminal Code, creates a powerful new tool for innovative SMEs to report, investigate, and prosecute theft of trade secrets. It also comes with specific considerations and risks that innovative SMEs should examine and contemplate. This article explores strategies for SMEs in Canada to use section 391 to protect their trade secrets, navigate the legal environment during theft of a trade secret, and remediate such theft.
{"title":"Criminal Enforcement of Trade Secret Theft: Strategic Considerations for Canadian SMEs","authors":"M. Malone","doi":"10.22215/timreview/1402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/1402","url":null,"abstract":"Many innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs) face unique challenges in protecting their intellectual property (IP). Potential theft of trade secrets is a key feature of these challenges, which arises often in the context of disputes related to employee mobility. Despite the risks these challenges pose, SMEs often confront significant resource barriers in protecting themselves from trade secret theft. The passage of a recent criminal law by the Canadian federal government, section 391 of the Criminal Code, creates a powerful new tool for innovative SMEs to report, investigate, and prosecute theft of trade secrets. It also comes with specific considerations and risks that innovative SMEs should examine and contemplate. This article explores strategies for SMEs in Canada to use section 391 to protect their trade secrets, navigate the legal environment during theft of a trade secret, and remediate such theft.","PeriodicalId":223837,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Criminal Law (Public Law - Crime) (Topic)","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129612562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicolás Ajzenman, Patricio Dominguez-Rivera, R. Undurraga
This paper studies the effects of immigration on crime and crime perceptions in Chile, where the foreign-born population tripled in less than ten years. We document null effects of immigration on crime but positive and significant effects on crime-related concerns and on preventive behavioral responses, such as investing in home security. We explore several channels and provide suggestive evidence related to low- versus high-education immigrants, ethnicity-related intergroup threats, and the role of local media. (JEL D83, D91, J15, K42, L82, O15, O17)
{"title":"Immigration, Crime, and Crime (Mis)Perceptions","authors":"Nicolás Ajzenman, Patricio Dominguez-Rivera, R. Undurraga","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3689249","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3689249","url":null,"abstract":"This paper studies the effects of immigration on crime and crime perceptions in Chile, where the foreign-born population tripled in less than ten years. We document null effects of immigration on crime but positive and significant effects on crime-related concerns and on preventive behavioral responses, such as investing in home security. We explore several channels and provide suggestive evidence related to low- versus high-education immigrants, ethnicity-related intergroup threats, and the role of local media. (JEL D83, D91, J15, K42, L82, O15, O17)","PeriodicalId":223837,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Criminal Law (Public Law - Crime) (Topic)","volume":"25 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132236679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The research paper revolves around the flawed system & alarming rate of crimes at cruise ships .It also highlights the damages these cruise companies cause to the mankind. It also provides insight to recent developments in cruise crime and possible solutions to overcome it.
{"title":"A Panel Study on Flawed System of Cruise Ships","authors":"Randeep Singh, Sridharan Sreehari","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3833811","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3833811","url":null,"abstract":"The research paper revolves around the flawed system & alarming rate of crimes at cruise ships .It also highlights the damages these cruise companies cause to the mankind. It also provides insight to recent developments in cruise crime and possible solutions to overcome it.","PeriodicalId":223837,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Criminal Law (Public Law - Crime) (Topic)","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120988262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper uncovers the mechanism behind the relaxation of self-defense regulations with an empirical analysis followed by a game theoretical model. We obtained empirical evidence from examining the Stand Your Ground (SYG) law and subsequent changes in rates of planned and unplanned murder. We found that the SYG law increased planned murder rate by 7.6%, while it increased unplanned murder rate by 10.4%, on average across specification. Inspired by the differences, we built a game theory model based on Becker [1968] to explain the mechanisms. Faced with an increased likelihood of self-defense from the victim, some offenders of planned murder would be deterred, but others would prepare more thoroughly. Since offenders are often more experienced than victims in carrying out criminal activities, their improved preparations are likely to increase their success rate. On the contrary, offenders who act on-the-spot are less likely to improve their efforts more than the victims. In this case, if offenders are aggravated by victims’ defense, a more minor offense is likely to turn into murder. To decrease the success rate of planned murder, community-based approaches might be helpful (Makarios and Pratt [2012]). However, to prevent conversions of other kinds of crimes to unplanned murder, policy makers might want to reconsider the law.
{"title":"Self-defense Regulations and Crime","authors":"Ye Hong, L. Yin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3671117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3671117","url":null,"abstract":"This paper uncovers the mechanism behind the relaxation of self-defense regulations with an empirical analysis followed by a game theoretical model. We obtained empirical evidence from examining the Stand Your Ground (SYG) law and subsequent changes in rates of planned and unplanned murder. We found that the SYG law increased planned murder rate by 7.6%, while it increased unplanned murder rate by 10.4%, on average across specification. Inspired by the differences, we built a game theory model based on Becker [1968] to explain the mechanisms. Faced with an increased likelihood of self-defense from the victim, some offenders of planned murder would be deterred, but others would prepare more thoroughly. Since offenders are often more experienced than victims in carrying out criminal activities, their improved preparations are likely to increase their success rate. On the contrary, offenders who act on-the-spot are less likely to improve their efforts more than the victims. In this case, if offenders are aggravated by victims’ defense, a more minor offense is likely to turn into murder. To decrease the success rate of planned murder, community-based approaches might be helpful (Makarios and Pratt [2012]). However, to prevent conversions of other kinds of crimes to unplanned murder, policy makers might want to reconsider the law.","PeriodicalId":223837,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Criminal Law (Public Law - Crime) (Topic)","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121525586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Selling retail marijuana in the United States is illegal — or is it? A rising number of states have legalized the retail sale of marijuana and are busily regulating these sales and the companies that make them. Even so, the sale of marijuana is a crime under federal law. Are companies that sell retail marijuana duly sanctioned, productive contributors to their state economies, or are they felons just waiting for the wheels of justice to turn in their direction? At this moment, no one can answer that question with certainty. What is certain is that more companies are being formed each day for the purpose of cultivating, producing, and/or distributing retail marijuana, many of which are being formed as corporations (Retail Marijuana Corporations). Like their counterparts outside of the marijuana industry, Retail Marijuana Corporations are subject to the same state corporation statutes and the same federal criminal statutes and securities laws. This means, like other corporations, Retail Marijuana Corporations are governed by boards of directors, who owe their companies the traditional duties of care and loyalty. What sets directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations apart from other directors is their precarious legal circumstances: Directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations sit at the helm of companies that are knowingly violating federal law. In overseeing these companies’ businesses and guiding them toward profitability, directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations expose themselves to a great deal of potential criminal and civil liability. Existing scholarship on marijuana-related businesses introduces some of the challenges faced by corporations engaged in the marijuana industry under state law. This Article expands the inquiry to explore new avenues of state and federal liability with a particular focus on directors. Part I provides a brief outline of the laws regulating the retail marijuana business at the federal and state levels. Part II surveys the various sources of liability directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations face. It first addresses liability for breach of fiduciary duty under state fiduciary duty principles. Next, it outlines criminal aiding and abetting liability under the federal Controlled Substances Act. It then discusses directors’ exposure under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Last, it analyzes these directors’ potential liability under the federal securities laws’ antifraud provisions. Part III concludes with thoughts about why directors’ liability matters to Retail Marijuana Corporations’ investors.
{"title":"High Crimes: Liability for Directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations","authors":"Lauren A. Newell","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3438485","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3438485","url":null,"abstract":"Selling retail marijuana in the United States is illegal — or is it? A rising number of states have legalized the retail sale of marijuana and are busily regulating these sales and the companies that make them. Even so, the sale of marijuana is a crime under federal law. Are companies that sell retail marijuana duly sanctioned, productive contributors to their state economies, or are they felons just waiting for the wheels of justice to turn in their direction? At this moment, no one can answer that question with certainty. \u0000 \u0000What is certain is that more companies are being formed each day for the purpose of cultivating, producing, and/or distributing retail marijuana, many of which are being formed as corporations (Retail Marijuana Corporations). Like their counterparts outside of the marijuana industry, Retail Marijuana Corporations are subject to the same state corporation statutes and the same federal criminal statutes and securities laws. This means, like other corporations, Retail Marijuana Corporations are governed by boards of directors, who owe their companies the traditional duties of care and loyalty. \u0000 \u0000What sets directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations apart from other directors is their precarious legal circumstances: Directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations sit at the helm of companies that are knowingly violating federal law. In overseeing these companies’ businesses and guiding them toward profitability, directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations expose themselves to a great deal of potential criminal and civil liability. \u0000 \u0000Existing scholarship on marijuana-related businesses introduces some of the challenges faced by corporations engaged in the marijuana industry under state law. This Article expands the inquiry to explore new avenues of state and federal liability with a particular focus on directors. Part I provides a brief outline of the laws regulating the retail marijuana business at the federal and state levels. Part II surveys the various sources of liability directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations face. It first addresses liability for breach of fiduciary duty under state fiduciary duty principles. Next, it outlines criminal aiding and abetting liability under the federal Controlled Substances Act. It then discusses directors’ exposure under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Last, it analyzes these directors’ potential liability under the federal securities laws’ antifraud provisions. Part III concludes with thoughts about why directors’ liability matters to Retail Marijuana Corporations’ investors.","PeriodicalId":223837,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Criminal Law (Public Law - Crime) (Topic)","volume":"489 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122866970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The criminal justice system traditionally performs its public functions – condemning prohibited conduct, shaming and stigmatizing violators, promoting societal norms – through the use of negative examples: convicting and punishing violators. One could imagine, however, that the same public functions could also be performed through the use of positive examples: publicly acknowledging and celebrating offenders who have chosen a path of atonement through confession, apology, making amends, acquiescing in just punishment, and promising future law abidingness. An offender who takes this path arguably deserves official public recognition, an update of all records and databases to record the public redemption, and an exemption from all collateral consequences of conviction. This essay explores how and why such a system of public redemption might be constructed, the benefits it might provide to offenders, victims, and society, and the political complications that creation of such a system might encounter.
{"title":"The Opposite of Punishment: Imagining a Path to Public Redemption","authors":"P. Robinson, Muhammad Sarahne","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3406761","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3406761","url":null,"abstract":"The criminal justice system traditionally performs its public functions – condemning prohibited conduct, shaming and stigmatizing violators, promoting societal norms – through the use of negative examples: convicting and punishing violators. One could imagine, however, that the same public functions could also be performed through the use of positive examples: publicly acknowledging and celebrating offenders who have chosen a path of atonement through confession, apology, making amends, acquiescing in just punishment, and promising future law abidingness. An offender who takes this path arguably deserves official public recognition, an update of all records and databases to record the public redemption, and an exemption from all collateral consequences of conviction. \u0000 \u0000This essay explores how and why such a system of public redemption might be constructed, the benefits it might provide to offenders, victims, and society, and the political complications that creation of such a system might encounter.","PeriodicalId":223837,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Criminal Law (Public Law - Crime) (Topic)","volume":" 14","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"113952161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laws permitting the expungement of criminal convictions are a key component of modern criminal justice reform efforts and have been the subject of a recent upsurge in legislative activity. This debate has been almost entirely devoid of evidence about the laws’ effects, in part because the necessary data (such as sealed records themselves) have been unavailable. We were able to obtain access to de-identified data that overcome that problem, and we use it to carry out a comprehensive statewide study of expungement recipients and comparable nonrecipients in Michigan. We offer three key sets of empirical findings. First, among those legally eligible for expungement, just 6.5% obtain it within five years of eligibility. Drawing on patterns in our data as well as interviews with expungement lawyers, we point to reasons for this serious “uptake gap.” Second, those who do obtain expungement have extremely low subsequent crime rates, comparing favorably to the general population — a finding that defuses a common public-safety objection to expungement laws. Third, those who obtain expungement experience a sharp upturn in their wage and employment trajectories; on average, within one year, wages go up by over 22% versus the pre-expungement trajectory, an effect mostly driven by unemployed people finding jobs and minimally employed people finding steadier or higher-paying work.
{"title":"Expungement of Criminal Convictions: An Empirical Study","authors":"J. Prescott, Sonja B. Starr","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3353620","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3353620","url":null,"abstract":"Laws permitting the expungement of criminal convictions are a key component of modern criminal justice reform efforts and have been the subject of a recent upsurge in legislative activity. This debate has been almost entirely devoid of evidence about the laws’ effects, in part because the necessary data (such as sealed records themselves) have been unavailable. We were able to obtain access to de-identified data that overcome that problem, and we use it to carry out a comprehensive statewide study of expungement recipients and comparable nonrecipients in Michigan. We offer three key sets of empirical findings. First, among those legally eligible for expungement, just 6.5% obtain it within five years of eligibility. Drawing on patterns in our data as well as interviews with expungement lawyers, we point to reasons for this serious “uptake gap.” Second, those who do obtain expungement have extremely low subsequent crime rates, comparing favorably to the general population — a finding that defuses a common public-safety objection to expungement laws. Third, those who obtain expungement experience a sharp upturn in their wage and employment trajectories; on average, within one year, wages go up by over 22% versus the pre-expungement trajectory, an effect mostly driven by unemployed people finding jobs and minimally employed people finding steadier or higher-paying work.","PeriodicalId":223837,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Criminal Law (Public Law - Crime) (Topic)","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132189403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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