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.

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.

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.

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.