Probable Causation

Episode 31: Randi Hjalmarsson on jury decision-making (REBROADCAST)

Randi Hjalmarsson talks about how punishment severity affects juries' decisions to convict. This episode was first posted in June 2020.
"How Punishment Severity Affects Jury Verdicts: Evidence from Two Natural Experiments" by Anna Bindler and Randi Hjalmarsson.
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“Making the Crime Fit the Penalty: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion under Mandatory Minimum Sentencing” by David Bjerk.
“The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials” by Shamena Anwar, Patrick Bayer, and Randi Hjalmarsson.
“The Role of Age in Jury Selection and Trial Outcomes” by Shamena Anwar, Patrick Bayer, and Randi Hjalmarsson.
“A Jury of Her Peers: The Impact of the First Female Jurors on Criminal Verdicts” by Shamena Anwar, Patrick Bayer, and Randi Hjalmarsson.
“Politics in the Courtroom: Political Ideology and Jury Decision Making” by Shamena Anwar, Patrick Bayer, and Randi Hjalmarsson.
“No Hatred or Malice, Fear or Affection: Media and Sentencing” by Aurelie Ouss and Arnaud Philippe.
“Path Dependency in Jury Decision Making” by Anna Bindler and Randi Hjalmarsson.
“The Persistence of the Criminal Justice Gender Gap: Evidence from 200 Years of Judicial Decisions” by Anna Bindler and Randi Hjalmarsson.
“The Impact of the First Professional Police Forces on Crime” by Anna Bindler and Randi Hjalmarsson.
 
 

Episode 25: Sara Heller on summer youth employment programs (REBROADCAST)

Sara Heller talks about summer youth employment programs.
"Summer Jobs Reduce Violence Among Disadvantaged Youth" by Sara B. Heller.
"Rethinking the Benefits of Youth Employment Programs: The Heterogeneous Effects of Summer Jobs" by Jonathan M.V. Davis and Sara B. Heller
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
"What Works? A Meta Analysis of Recent Active Labor Market Program Evaluations" by David Card, Jochen Kluve, and Andrea Weber.
"Active Labor Market Policies" by Bruno Crépon and Gerard J. van den Berg.
"Employment and Training Programs" by Robert J. LaLonde.
"The Promise of Public Sector-Sponsored Training Programs" by Robert J. LaLonde.
"The Youth Entitlement Demonstration: Subsidized Employment with a Schooling Requirement" by George Farkas, D. Alton Smith, and Ernst W. Stromsdorfer.
"A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of In-School and Summer Neighborhood Youth Corps: A Nationwide Evaluation" by Gerald G. Somers and Ernst W. Stromsdorfer.
"Summer Training and Education Program (STEP): Report on Long-Term Impacts" by Cynthia L. Sipe and Jean Baldwin Grossman.
"An Anatomy of a Demonstration: STEP from Pilot through Replication and Postprogram Impacts" by Frances Vilella-Velez and Gary Walker.
"The Summer Employment Experiences and the Personal/Social Behaviors of Youth Violence Prevention Employment Program Participants and Those of a Comparison Group" by Andrew Sum, Mykhaylo Trubskyy, and Walter McHugh.
"Enriching Summer Work: An Evaluation of the Summer Career Exploration Program" by Wendy S. McClanahan, Cynthia L. Sipe, and Thomas J. Smith.
"What Is a Summer Job Worth? The Impact of Summer Youth Employment on Academic Outcomes" by Jacob Leos-Urbel.
"Making Summer Matter: The Impact of Youth Employment on Academic Performance" by Amy Ellen Schwartz, Jacob Leos-Urbel, and Matt Wiswall.
"The Effects of Youth Employment: Evidence from New York City Lotteries" by Alexander Gelber, Adam Isen, and Judd B. Kessler.
"An Introduction to the World of Work: A Study of the Implementation and Impacts of New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program" by Erin Jacobs Valentine, Chloe Anderson Golub, Farhana Hossain, and Rebecca Unterman.
"How Do Summer Youth Employment Programs Improve Criminal Justice Outcomes, and for Whom?" by Alicia Sasser Modestino.
"Reducing inequality summer by summer: Lessons from an evaluation of the Boston Summer Youth Employment Program" by Alicia Sasser Modestino and Richard J. Paulsen.
"School’s Out: How Summer Youth Employment Programs Impact Academic Outcomes" by Alicia Sasser Modestino and Richard Paulsen.

Episode 101: Xinming Du on social media content and offline violence

Xinming Du talks about how aggressive posts on social media affect offline violence.
“Symptom or Culprit? Social Media, Air Pollution, and Violence” by Xinming Du. 
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“Experimental Evidence of Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion Through Social Networks” by Adam Kramer, Jamie Guillory, and Jeffrey Hancock.
“Social Media and Protest Participation: Evidence from Russia” by Ruben Enikolopov, Alexey Makarin, and Maria Petrova.
“Fanning the Flames of Hate: Social Media and Hate Crime” by Karsten Muller and Carlo Schwarz.
Episode 35 of Probable Causation: Erich Muehlegger
“Toxic Content and User Engagement on Social Media: Evidence from a Field Experiment” by George Beknazar-Yuzbashev, Rafael Jiménez Durán, Jesse McCrosky, and Mateusz Stalinski.
“Social Media and Mental Health” by Luca Braghieri, Ro’ee Levy, and Alexey Makarin.

Episode 100: Marina Gorzig and Deborah Rho on renter protection policies

Marina Gorzig and Deborah Rho talk about the effects of renter protection policies (including limits on landlords' use of criminal records) in Minneapolis. 
“The Impact of Renter Protection Policies on Housing Discrimination in Minneapolis” by Marina Gorzig and Deborah Rho.
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“The Unintended Consequences of ‘Ban the Box’: Statistical Discrimination and Employment Outcomes when Criminal Histories are Hidden” by Jennifer Doleac and Benjamin Hansen.
“Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Racial Discrimination: A Field Experiment” by Amanda Agan and Sonja Starr.
Episode 8 of Probable Causation: Amanda Agan.
“Discrimination and the Effects of Drug Testing on Black Employment” by Abigail Wozniak.
“Deleting a Signal: Evidence from Pre-Employment Credit Checks” by Alexander W. Bartik and Scott T. Nelson.
“Criminal Records and Housing: An Experimental Study” by Peter Leasure and Tara Martin.

Episode 99: Ben Feigenberg on class disparities in traffic stops

Ben Feigenberg talks about socioeconomic disparities in who police stop for traffic offenses.
“Class Disparities and Discrimination in Traffic Stops and Searches” by Ben Feigenberg and Conrad Miller.
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“Would Eliminating Racial Disparities in Motor Vehicle Searches Have Efficiency Costs?” by Ben Feigenberg and Conrad Miller.
“Smartphone Data Reveal Neighborhood-Level Racial Disparities in Police Presence” by M. Keith Chen, Katherine L. Christensen, Elicia John, Emily Owens, and Yilin Zhou.
“Multitasking, Expectations, and Police Officer Behavior” by James Reeves. [Draft available from author upon request].
“My Taxes are Too Darn High: Why Do Households Protest Their Taxes?” by Brad C. Nathan, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, and Alejandro Zentner.

Episode 98: Evan Rose on community supervision

Evan Rose talks about community supervision, and the costs and benefits of incarceration as a consequence for breaking probation rules
“Who Gets a Second Chance? Effectiveness and Equity in Supervision of Criminal Offenders” by Evan K. Rose
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“Five Year Outcomes in a Randomized Trial of a Community-Based Multi-Agency Intensive Supervision Juvenile Probation Program” by Karen Hennigan, Kathy Kolnick, Tian Sivan Tian, Cheryl Maxson, and John Poplawski.
“The Effects of Low-Intensity Supervision for Lower-Risk Probationers: Updated Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial” by Geoffrey C. Barnes, Jordan M. Hyatt, Lindsay Ahlman, and Daniel Kent.
“An Evaluation of Day Reporting Centers of Parolees: Outcomes of a Randomized Trial” by Douglas J. Boyle, Laura M Ragusa-Salerno, Jennifer L. Lanterman, and Andrea Fleisch Marcus.
“An Experimental Evaluation of the Impact of Intensive Supervision on the Recidivism of High-Risk Probationers” by Jordan M. Hyatt and Geoffrey C. Barnes.
“Managing Drug Involved Probationers with Swift and Certain Sanctions: Evaluating Hawaii’s HOPE” by Angela Hawken and Mark Kleiman.
“Washington Intensive Supervision Program: Evaluation Report” by Angela Hawken and Mark Kleiman.
“Alternative Models of Instant Drug Testing: Evidence from an Experimental Trial” by Eric Grommon, Stephen M. Cox, William S. Davidson II, and Timothy S. Bynum.
“HOPE II: A Follow-up to Hawaii’s HOPE Evaluation” by Angela Hawken, Jonathan Kulick, Kelly Smith, Jie Mei, Yiwen Zhang, Sara Jarman, Travis Yu, Chris Carson, and Tifanie Vial.
“Outcome Findings from the HOPE Demonstration Field Experiment: Is Swift, Certain, and Fair an Effective Supervision Strategy?” by Pamela K. Lattimore, Doris Layton MacKenzie, Gary Zajac, Debbie Dawes, Elaine Arsenault, and Stephen Tueller.
“Managing Pretrial Misconduct: An Experimental Evaluation of HOPE Pretrial” by Janet Davidson, George King, Jens Ludwig, and Steven Raphael.
“Efficient Sentencing? The Effect of Post-Release Supervision on Low-Level Offenders” by Ryan Sakoda. [Unpublished manuscript]
 

Episode 67: David Phillips on mental health care for people released from jail (REBROADCAST)

David Phillips talks about connecting people released from jail with mental health care. This episode was first posted in February 2022.
“Reducing Re-arrests through Light Touch Mental Health Outreach” by Mary Kate Batistich, William N. Evans and David C. Phillips
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“Local Access to Mental Healthcare and Crime” by Monica Deza, Johanna Catherine Maclean, and Keisha Solomon.
“Mental Health and Criminal Involvement: Evidence from Losing Medicaid Eligibility” by Elisa Jácome.
Episode 60 of Probable Causation: Elisa Jácome.
“Substance Abuse Treatment Centers and Local Crime” by Samuel R. Bondurant, Jason M. Lindo, and Isaac D. Swensen.
“Behavioral Nudges Reduce Failure to Appear for Court” by Alissa Fishbane, Aurelie Ouss, and Anuj K. Shah.
Episode 21 of Probable Causation: Aurelie Ouss.
“The Impact of Youth Medicaid Eligibility on Adult Incarceration” by Samuel Arenberg, Seth Neller, and Sam Stripling.
“Stress on the Sidewalk: The Mental Health Costs of Close Proximity Crime” by Panka Bencsik.
“Policing Substance Use: Chicago's Treatment Program for Narcotics Arrests” by Ashna Arora and Panka Bencsik.
“Crisis Averted? The Effects of Crisis Intervention Units on Arrests and Use of Force” by Maya Mikdash and Chelsea Temple. (Draft available from the authors).

Episode 20: J.J. Prescott on sex offender registries (REBROADCAST)

J.J. Prescott talks about sex offender registries. This episode was first posted in January 2020.
"Do Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws Affect Criminal Behavior?" by J.J. Prescott and Jonah E. Rockoff.
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
Legislation Targeting Sex Offenders: Are Recent Policies Effective in Reducing Rape? by Alissa R. Ackerman, Meghan Sacks and David F. Greenberg.
The Iowa Sex Offender Registry and Recidivism by Geneva Adkins, David Huff, and Paul Stageberg.
Sex Offender Registries: Fear without Function? by Amanda Y. Agan.
Sex Offender Law and the Geography of Victimization by J. J. Prescott and Amanda Y. Agan.
Time-Series Analyses of the Impact of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Law Implementation and Subsequent Modifications on Rates of Sexual Offenses by Jeff A. Bouffard and LaQuana N. Askew.
The Effect of Sex Offender Registries on Recidivism: Evidence from a Natural Experiment by Jillian B. Carr.
The Impact of Megan’s Law on Sex Offender Recidivism: The Minnesota Experience by
Grant Duwe and William Donnay.
The Public Safety Impact of Community Notification Laws: Rearrest of Convicted Sex Offenders by Naomi J. Freeman.
Juvenile Registration and Notification Policy Effects: A Multistate Evaluation Project by Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Jeffery Sandler, Donna Vandiver, Ryan Shields, and Reshmi Nair.
Failure to Register as a Sex Offender: Is it Associated with Recidivism? Jill Levenson, Elizabeth Letourneau, Kevin Armstrong, and Kristen Marie Zgoba.
Failure-to-Register Laws and Public Safety: An Examination of Risk Factors and Sex Offense Recidivism by Jill Levenson, Jeffrey Sandler, and Naomi Freeman.
Community Protection Policies and Repeat Sexual Offenses in Florida by Jill S. Levenson and Kristen M. Zgoba.
Utilizing Criminal History Information to Explore the Effect of Community Notification on Sex Offender Recidivism by Sean Maddan, J. Mitchell Miller, Jeffery T. Walker, and Ineke Haen Marshall.
A Time-Series Analysis of the Effectiveness of Sex Offender Notification Laws in the USA by Kimberly Maurelli and George Ronan.
Does a Watched Pot Boil? A Time-Series Analysis of New York State's Sex Offender Registration and Notification Law by Jeffrey C. Sandler, Naomi J. Freeman, and Kelly M. Socia.
Juvenile Sexual Crime Reporting Rates are not Influenced by Juvenile Sex Offender Registration Policies by Jeffrey C. Sandler, Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Donna Vandiver, Ryan T. Shields, and Mark Chaffin.
Community Notification: A Study of Offender Characteristics and Recidivism by Donna D. Schram and Cheryl Darling Milloy.
“Brothers Under the Bridge”: Factors Influencing the Transience of Registered Sex Offenders in Florida by Kelly M. Socia, Jill S. Levenson, Alissa R. Ackerman, and Andrew J. Harris.
Assessing the Impact of Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification on Sex-Offending Trajectories by Richard Tewksbury and Wesley G. Jennings.
A Longitudinal Examination of Sex Offender Recidivism Prior to and Following the Implementation of SORN by Richard Tewksbury, Wesley G. Jennings, and Kristen M. Zgoba.
The Influence of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws in the United States: A Time-Series Analysis by Bob E. Vasquez, Sean Maddan, and Jeffery T. Walker.
Sex Offender Community Notification: Its Role in Recidivism and Offender Reintegration by Richard G. Zevitz.
Failure to Register as a Predictor of Sex Offense Recidivism: The Big Bad Wolf or a Red Herring? by Jill S. Levenson and Kristen M. Zgoba
An Analysis of the Effectiveness of Community Notification and Registration: Do the Best Intentions Predict the Best Practices? by Kristen Zgoba , Bonita M. Veysey & Melissa Dalessandro.
 

Episode 36: Ellora Derenoncourt on the Great Migration and economic mobility (REBROADCAST)

Ellora Derenoncourt talks about how the Great Migration affected economic mobility. This episode was first posted in September 2020.
"Can you move to opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration" by Ellora Derenoncourt. 
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
"Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective" by Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie R. Jones, and Sonya R. Porter.
"The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility I: Childhood Exposure Effects" by Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren.
"The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility II: County-Level Estimates" by Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren.
"Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migration and Racial Wage Convergence in the North, 1940–1970" by Leah Platt Boustan.
"Was Postwar Suburbanization 'White Flight'? Evidence from the Black Migration" by Leah Platt Boustan.
"Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets" by Leah Platt Boustan.
"Migration Networks and Location Decisions: Evidence from US Mass Migration" by Bryan A. Stuart and Evan J. Taylor.
"The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration" by Isabel Wilkerson.
"Creating Moves to Opportunity: Experimental Evidence on Barriers to Neighborhood Choice" by Peter Bergman, Raj Chetty, Stefanie DeLuca, Nathaniel Hendren, Lawrence F. Katz, and Christopher Palmer.
"Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works" by Rucker C. Johnson.
"The Long-run Economic Effects of School Desegregation" by Cody Tuttle.

Episode 60: Elisa Jácome on access to mental health care (REBROADCAST)

Elisa Jácome talks about how access to mental health care affects criminal behavior. This episode was first posted in November 2021.
“Mental Health and Criminal Involvement: Evidence from Losing Medicaid Eligibility” by Elisa Jácome.
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison” by Bruce Western.
“Thinking, Fast and Slow? Some Field Experiments to Reduce Crime and Dropout in Chicago” by Sara B. Heller, Anuj K. Shah, Jonathan Guryan, Jens Ludwig, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Harold A. Pollack.
”Youth depression and future criminal behavior” by D. Mark Anderson, Resul Cesur, and Erdal Tekin.
“Substance Abuse Treatment Centers and Local Crime” by Samuel R. Bondurant, Jason M. Lindo, and Isaac D. Swensen.
”The FDA and ABCs Unintended Consequences of Antidepressant Warnings on Human Capital” by Susan Busch, Ezra Golberstein, and Ellen Meara.
”Consequences of Eliminating Federal Disability Benefits for Substance Abusers” by Pinka Chatterji and EllenMeara.
”Long-Term Consequences of Childhood ADHD on Criminal Activities” by Jason Fletcher and Barbara Wolfe.
“A Cure for Crime? Psycho-Pharmaceuticals and Crime Trends” by Dave E. Marcotte,Sara Markowitz.
”Psychiatric Disorders in Youth in Juvenile Detention” by Linda A. Teplin, Karen M. Abram, Gary M. McClelland, Mina K. Dulcan, and Amy A. Mericle.
”Access to Health Care and Criminal Behavior: Short-Run Evidence from the ACA Medicaid Expansions” by Jacob Vogler.
”The effect of medicaid expansion on crime reduction: Evidence from hifa-waiver expansions” by Hefei Wen, Jason M. Hockenberry, Janet R. Cummings.
”The Effect of Public Health Insurance on Criminal Recidivism” by Erkmen Giray Aslim, Murat C. Mungan, Carlos Navarro, and Han Yu.
”The effect of health insurance on crime: Evidence from the affordable care act medicaid expansion” by Qiwei He and Scott Barkowski.
“Local access to mental healthcare and crime” by Monica Deza, Johanna Catherine Maclean, and Keisha T. Solomon.
“The Impact of Youth Medicaid Eligibility on Adult Incarceration” by Samuel Arenberg, Seth Neller, and Sam Stripling.
“The Health Effects of Prison” by Randi Hjalmarsson and Matthew Lindquist.
Probable Causation Episode 41: Matthew Lindquist.