Document Type

Article

Abstract

Increasing criminal sanctions may reduce crime through two primary mechanisms: deterrence and incapacitation. Disentangling their effects is crucial, since each mechanism has different implications for optimal policy setting. I use the introduction of state add-on gun laws, which enhance sentences for defendants possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony, to isolate the deterrent effect of incarceration. Defendants subject to add-ons would be incarcerated in the absence of the law change, so any short-term impact on crime can be attributed solely to deterrence. Using cross-state variation in the timing of law passage dates, I find that the average add-on gun law results in a roughly 5 percent decline in gun robberies within the first three years. This result is robust to a number of specification tests and does not appear to be associated with large spillovers to other types of crime.

Date of Authorship for this Version

1-2011

Keywords

Criminal law, punishment, mandatory sentencing, incarceration, sentence length, enhancement, armed robbery, use of a gun in the commission of a crime, deterrence, empirical research, forecasting and simulation, ascertaining disparities in criminal behavior, law and economics of crime, general deterrence, add-ons, add-on gun laws, mandatory minimum