TY - JOUR
T1 - Rehabilitated or not
T2 - An informational theory of parole decisions
AU - Bernhardt, Dan
AU - Mongrain, Steeve
AU - Roberts, Joanne
N1 - Funding Information:
∗∗∗Department of Economics, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Email: [email protected] All authors are grateful to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council for financial support, and Joanne Roberts thanks CIFAR and the Canada Research Chair program. We thank Itziar Lazkano for research assistance. We also thank seminar participants at the University of Aix-Marseille, Calgary, Catholique de Louvain, Liège, Southampton and at the Canadian Economics Association meetings. The usual disclaimer applies.
PY - 2012/6
Y1 - 2012/6
N2 - We consider a parole board that learns about inmates' rehabilitation statuses from observing actions in prison. We show why a board would release one inmate, but not otherwise observationally identical inmates with longer sentences: greater parole board discretion makes additional information more valuable. Consequently, increasing sentences can lead to even greater increases in expected time served. We determine how sentence length affects rehabilitation incentives. To encourage effort, sentences cannot be too short, but when inmates are sufficiently impatient, long sentences may also be undesirable. We show how different parole board priors can support multiple equilibria in rehabilitation effort and investigate the effects of discretion restrictions like parole eligibility.
AB - We consider a parole board that learns about inmates' rehabilitation statuses from observing actions in prison. We show why a board would release one inmate, but not otherwise observationally identical inmates with longer sentences: greater parole board discretion makes additional information more valuable. Consequently, increasing sentences can lead to even greater increases in expected time served. We determine how sentence length affects rehabilitation incentives. To encourage effort, sentences cannot be too short, but when inmates are sufficiently impatient, long sentences may also be undesirable. We show how different parole board priors can support multiple equilibria in rehabilitation effort and investigate the effects of discretion restrictions like parole eligibility.
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U2 - 10.1093/jleo/ewq008
DO - 10.1093/jleo/ewq008
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84863754444
SN - 8756-6222
VL - 28
SP - 186
EP - 210
JO - Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization
JF - Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization
IS - 2
ER -