Research

“Prosecutorial Reform and Local Crime Rates”, with Amanda Y. Agan, Jennifer L. Doleac, Anna Harvey, and Lauren Schechter. (Submitted)

Many communities across the United States have elected reform-minded prosecutors who seek to safely reduce the reach and burden of the criminal justice system. In this paper, we use variation in the timing of when these prosecutors took office across jurisdictions to empirically characterize their policy changes and estimate downstream effects on prison incarceration rates, local reported crime rates, and drug mortality rates. We find that after a reform prosecutor takes office there are consistent and often statistically significant decreases in charging and conviction rates for nonviolent misdemeanor offenses, particularly misdemeanor drug offenses, but not for violent or felony offenses. We find little to no downstream effects on prison incarceration rates and no effects on local reported crime rates or drug mortality rates. These findings suggest that the types of policies being implemented by reform prosecutors appear to be decreasing the footprint of the criminal justice system without adverse effects on public safety.

“Concealed Carry Laws and Fatal Police Encounters”

Violent encounters between police and civilians are an important policy issue, and policymakers are eager to find ways to reduce them–particularly the unnecessary use of police force. One reason that officers may be quick to use force is fear for their personal safety, which may increase in environments with more civilian gun carriers. In this paper, I consider the effect of concealed carry laws on violent police encounters. Studying the staggered rollout of lenient concealed carry laws in the United States, I find suggestive evidence that as gun laws become more lenient, officers assaults rise. Under the most lenient gun laws, fatal police shootings of civilian increase–disproportionately affecting minorities–coupled with an indication that fewer police are killed in action. These findings emphasize the role of gun laws in the risks that officers face on the job and, in turn, their use of force against civilians. 

“Judicial Transparency and Criminal Justice”, with Felipe Diaz and Alok Ranjan

Elected officials at all levels of governance routinely make decisions that affect large populations, often without public scrutiny. This study examines the effect of increased transparency on judicial decision-making by leveraging a legislative reform that mandated public disclosure of court fee waivers. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the share of cases with court cost waivers increased by nearly 120%. The effects varied across political districts and re-election timing, indicating that electoral incentives play a significant role in judicial responsiveness. We also find that the effect size decreases with defendant income, suggesting potential targeting of waivers for those with lower ability to pay. Additionally, transparency-induced reductions in monetary obligations led to lower recidivism rates and improved timely compliance among defendants.

“Strategic De-Policing: How Law Enforcement Responds to a Prosecutor Recall”, with Dvir Yogev. (Submitted)

This study examines strategic worker behavior in public sector employment, focusing on how police officers adjust enforcement efforts in response to anticipated management changes. Using the June 2022 recall election of San Francisco’s progressive district attorney as a quasi-experimental shock, we employ a Regression Kink Design to identify changes in police behavior. We find that officers strategically reduced enforcement activities before the recall—with stops declining by 0.17 per week—then immediately reversed course post-recall, increasing by 0.38 per week. This represents approximately 30 fewer stops and 49 fewer arrests over ten weeks, followed by a surge that increased the jail population by 902 person-days. These patterns persist across discretionary enforcement activities but not citizen-initiated calls, suggesting strategic effort adjustment rather than changes in underlying crime. Our findings illustrate how public sector workers with substantial autonomy can strategically vary effort in response to political dynamics, highlighting principal-agent problems unique to public employment where workers face multiple, potentially conflicting principals. The welfare costs of such misaligned incentives include both foregone public safety services and increased incarceration costs exceeding $1.4 million annually.

“Guns, Crime, and Hetereogeneity: An Empirical Analysis of Right-to-Carry Laws”,  with Ryan Quandt

“Recreational Marijuana Laws, Inmate Composition, and Recidivism” 

Recent efforts in the criminal justice system aim to improve its effectiveness and fairness. Policy reforms have focused on areas such as drug policy, prioritization according to the seriousness of cases, as well as exploring alternatives to incarceration for low-level, non-violent crimes. A possible unintended consequence of these policies is that the decrease in admission of low-level offenders in correctional facilities can change the composition of inmates and very likely create a more hostile incarceration experience. To explore this possibility I leverage the staggered decriminalization and legalization of recreational marijuana at the state level. These laws result in fewer low-level criminals being incarcerated for marijuana-related crimes and potentially more violent offenders taking their place. Using offender-level data, this paper examines the effects of marijuana laws on the composition of inmates and analyzes how these changes in the prison population affect recidivism rates.

“The Effect of Violence Against Police on Policing Behavior”, with CarlyWill Sloan

“Prosecution Research Initiative”, with Amanda Agan, Anna Harvey, and Lauren Schechter 

An ongoing, multi-year project with $1,000,000 funding, in partnership with several large district attorneys' offices, using detailed administrative case data to study the effects of prosecutors' policies and decision making on recidivism, public safety, and racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

“Recreational Marijuana Laws, Police Performance, and Racial Disparities” 

“A Welfare Analysis of Policies Impacting Violent Crime”, with Nour Abdul-Razzak, Jonathan Davis, and Kelly Hallberg