From Custody to Community: Post-release Supervision and Recidivism
About this event
Our research seminars provide a forum for academics to present and discuss their latest work. Academics come from both within the Business School and from external institutions. They share insights from their research or a paper in progress. This is followed by discussion and questions from the audience. The series is open to staff and students from across the University.
Hosted by
Speaker
Dr Markus Gehrsitz - Reader (Associate Professor) at Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde; Research Fellow at Institute of Labor Economics Labour (IZA) in Bonn.
Dr Gehrsitz is currently the recipient of an UKRI-funded ADR UK Fellowship to study the rehabilitation of criminal offenders
Learn more at markusgehrsitz.com/
Abstract
This paper asks whether supervision of previously incarcerated offenders reduces re-offending. We link administrative data on court cases, prison journeys, and probationary spells for the universe of offenders in England and Wales who have served short prison sentences. We combine these novel data with a natural experiment created by a recent national policy that introduced supervision and probationary rules. Our regression discontinuity design provides evidence that post-release supervision reduces re-offending in the first four weeks after release by 9 percent. These short-run reductions are primarily driven by the incapacitation of habitual offenders due to recalls to prison for violations of probation terms. The effect of supervision on re-offending persists over time and amounts to a 2.5 percent reduction in re-offending three years after release. Our study suggests that supervision leads to genuine behavioural change in the long run.