Objective Despite directives to investigate ways to abolish or, at the very least, further reduce the use of pecuniary sanctions for young offenders, fines remain the most common form of justice disposal among young people. This study examines the effects of replacing fines with diversion through prosecution deferrals on recidivism.

Method The study utilises administrative data and exploits a shift in prosecutorial decision-making in Sweden as a natural experiment, using a difference-in-differences approach. The reform substantially increased the use of prosecution deferrals at the expense of (low-amount) fines. Recidivism was operationalised as both rearrest and reconviction. Heterogeneity analyses were conducted across three broad categories: demography (sex), socioeconomic status (highest attained parental educational level), and criminal history (prior convictions).

Results The findings show no average effect of the reform on recidivism, whether measured by rearrest or reconviction. Analyses stratified by sex, socioeconomic status, and criminal history show little evidence of effect heterogeneity.

Conclusion The increased use of prosecution deferrals at the expense of fines had no crime-reducing effect and did not increase recidivism rates. Further reductions in the use of pecuniary sanctions for young offenders committing minor offences therefore appear to pose little risk to crime-reduction objectives. Rather, such a shift may signal societal investment in young individuals and conserve resources for legal authorities.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of early release from prison with electronic monitoring (EM) on recidivism and labor market attachment.

Methods: To address selection bias, the paper leverages a natural experiment consisting of a 2007 criminal justice reform that introduced the option for inmates to convert the remainder of their prison sentences to EM at home. Consequently, individuals who participated in the EM intervention spent less time in prison compared to those sentenced before the reform. The nature of the reform facilitates a regression discontinuity in time design, enabling a comparison between individuals sentenced during the period when early release with EM was available and those sentenced when this option had not yet been implemented.

Results: The reform did not produce any clear overall effects on either recidivism or labor market attachment. However, for individuals who were unemployed prior to incarceration or had a history of imprisonment, the ability to apply for early release with EM resulted in improved outcomes. Additionally, younger individuals experienced an increase in labor market attachment as a result of the reform.

Conclusion: Early release with EM has the potential to serve as an effective intervention for the reintegration of individuals with limited labor market attachment.

Objective: In recent decades, electronic monitoring (EM) has increasingly come to be used as an alternative to incarceration. However, EM’s long-term effects on offenders remain unclear, especially with regard to non-recidivism-related outcomes and reincarceration risks. This study focuses on the long-term impact of EM on recidivism, mortality, and labor market exclusion.

Method: The study utilizes administrative data, and focuses on a Swedish EM reform as a natural experiment with a difference-in-difference approach. The reform enabled offenders sentenced to up to six months’ imprisonment to serve their sentences under EM instead of in prison.

Results: The findings show that introducing the possibility to transform a prison stay to EM at home reduced 10-year reconviction and reincarceration rates. They also show that the reform had long-lasting decreasing effect on the likelihood of not being in education, employment, or training (NEET). The reform had, however, no effect on all-cause mortality or death by suicide. Heterogeneity analyses show that the effects are primarily driven by individuals who had a more stable labor market attachment prior to being sentenced to prison, which suggests that EM helps offenders sustain regular employment and that it decreases the criminogenic impact of labor market detachment. 

Conclusion: In addition to reducing the costs associated with recidivism and labor market exclusion, the reduced incarceration costs associated with transforming prison sentences to EM indicate that EM has the potential to produce net savings from a societal perspective.

Incarceration plays a central role both within criminology and in society at large. In terms of crime control, its purpose is to prevent offenses through deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. Because incarceration is partly intended to serve these instrumental purposes—and given that it is a costly institution, both economically and in human terms—evaluating its effectiveness is essential. In addition, incarceration has become increasingly prominent in political discourse, with reforms leading to rising incarceration rates in many countries, including Sweden. Despite this, robust evidence on the impact of incarceration remains ambiguous—both in terms of its overall effect on prison-sentenced individuals and the impact of specific interventions during imprisonment.

This thesis addresses both historically central components of incarceration and more contemporary issues that have emerged. These include the length of a prison stay and its deterrent effect on post-sentence reoffending (Article I), the number of crimes prevented due to the incapacitation effect of incarcerating an offender (Article II), and the effect of electronic monitoring—either as an alternative to incarceration (Article III) or as an early release intervention (Article IV). The outcomes examined in these studies extend beyond recidivism and include measures of employment and mortality as well.

The population studied in this thesis consists of first-time prison-sentenced individuals or low-risk inmates. These individuals hold particular policy relevance, as they are often situated on the margin between receiving a custodial or non-custodial sanction. By shedding light on this relatively large group, the findings from this thesis help inform policy decisions about where this margin should be drawn.

Beyond the subject of incarceration, the studies in this thesis share a common methodological approach, relying on quasi-experimental or natural experiment designs to more accurately estimate the effects of interest. The rigor of this thesis also stems from its use of a wide set of linked Swedish administrative registers, which enable effects to be measured not only in the short term but also over the long term.

The findings in this thesis show that the duration of incarceration does not affect post-sentence recidivism rates. This holds true regardless of whether the prison stay is shortened or extended. These findings suggest weak support for a specific deterrent effect, calling into question policies that assume longer sentences reduce future offending. An incapacitation effect is, however, identified, although it appears modest among low- to mid-risk inmates—supporting the consideration of non-custodial alternatives.

Since non-custodial interventions either reduce the duration of incarceration or replace prison stays entirely, concerns may arise regarding potential reductions in the crime-controlling capacity that might otherwise be expected if the sentence were served in prison in its entirety. However, this thesis does not find support for such concerns. On the contrary, it shows that electronic monitoring—whether used to replace the entire prison stay or only part of it—reduces long-term recidivism rates while also increasing labor market attachment. These findings have important implications for non-custodial alternatives to imprisonment and prison reintegration programs and, more broadly, how criminal justice policies should be shaped.

Objectives: To estimate how many offenses are averted through the incapacitation of first-time incarcerated offenders with sentences of two years or less. Methods: The counterfactual challenge of estimating criminal acts that would have been committed had the offender not been incarcerated is approached utilizing a matching design. Data comprise all offenders convicted in Sweden in 2018, matched on a vector of time-stable and time-varying covariates drawn from an extensive set of Swedish registers. Each incarcerated offender is matched to a nonincarcerated offender whose offending frequency is used to infer the incapacitation effect. Full sample estimates are provided as well as subgroup estimates for males, females, and various risk groups. Results: The annual incapacitation effect for first-time incarcerated offenders is estimated to be 0.53 when measured as the number of averted convictions and 1.14 when measured as the number of averted offenses that would have resulted in a conviction. For males, the annual number of convictions averted through incapacitation is 0.51, and for females 0.37. For the highest risk group, the annual number of averted convictions is 1.22, and the number of averted offenses resulting in conviction is 2.55. For offenders in the low-to-medium risk groups, the corresponding figures are approximately 0.31 averted convictions and approximately 0.68 averted offenses. Conclusion: For first-time incarcerated offenders, the incapacitation effect is modest and the heterogeneous effects found across different risk groups warrant considering whether the crime-preventive effect is sufficiently large for low-risk inmates and whether noncustodial sanctions might constitute an alternative that would ease overcrowding without producing any considerable risk for costs in terms of recidivism.

Objectives This study examines the relationship between incarceration time and post-release recidivism among first-time incarcerated adult offenders.

Methods A quasi-experimental design was adopted consisting of three policy reforms that were treated as separate natural experiments. While holding imposed sentence length constant, these policy reforms either decreased or increased the required share of a sentence inmates needed to be incarcerated before being eligible for parole. Data consisted of large-scale administrative records containing all convictions for the Swedish cohorts born in 1958 and later.

Results Results indicate that neither increased nor decreased incarceration time had a statistically significant effect on post-release recidivism, irrespective of how recidivism was measured.

Conclusions Findings reveal little evidence for incarceration time having a criminogenic or specific preventive effect on post-release recidivism.

The environmental impact of Shell Oil Company in Nigeria has resulted in large-scale protests. Despite their peaceful nature, these protests have been met with lethal violence by the Nigerian security forces. Accusations have been levelled against Shell for liability for human rights violations, but the company has denied responsibility. Previously confidential correspondence between Shell and Nigerian officials has come to show that the company has repeatedly persuaded security personnel to act against the protests. This article examines how Shell framed its desire for the Nigerian state to suppress the protests against the company. It does so by analysing the published documents, based on the theoretical framework provided by Stanley Cohen’s (1993) concepts regarding the neutralisation of criminal acts, and specifically, the neutralisation technique of appealing to higher loyalties. This is a technique adopted by companies when they use the greater good as a rationale for minimising their responsibility for harmful acts. The correspondence between Shell and Nigerian officials shows that Shell continuously urged the Nigerian officials to take action by referring to the company’s contribution to economic and social development in the region, even after their calls for action had been shown to have resulted in human rights abuses. In describing these rationales, the article highlights a case of corporate-initiated state crime, a form of crime that involves corporations inducing state actors to commit harmful acts.