Policy and Inequality in the Criminal Legal System

Abstract

This dissertation contains three chapters exploring the application of law and bureaucratic practices in law enforcement agencies and their impacts on community welfare across race and class. Chapter 1 is an analysis of racial disparities throughout the Massachusetts criminal legal system that I coauthored with a team from Harvard Law School's Criminal Justice Policy Program to be submitted to Chief Justice Ralph Gants of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Using administrative data from several sources, we find evidence of substantial racial disparities in criminal sentencing throughout the state that are particularly extreme for defendants facing drug charges, weapons charges, and charges that carry mandatory minimum incarceration sentences. Chapter 2, which I coauthored with a team based at The Lab @ DC, is an impact evaluation of a gun violence reduction intervention in Washington, DC. The intervention provided resources for more rapid and thorough processing of ballistic evidence, and while there were no measurable effects on violent crime or reported gunfire, law enforcement personnel reported that the timelier evidence was useful in the investigatory process. Chapter 3 is a quantitative analysis of the presumptive declination and diversion policy that was implemented by the Suffolk County District Attorney's office. Using an event study design, I find that the presumptive declination policy led to a decline in prosecution rates for nonviolent misdemeanor cases. These average decreases mask substantial heterogeneity, however, with prosecution rates declining substantially less for cases involving Black defendants. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that the introduction of the declination and diversion policy was associated with small (although statistically indistinguishable from zero) decreases in overall reoffending and violent reoffending