Probable Causation

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.

Episode 47: Greg Midgette on the 24/7 Sobriety program (REBROADCAST)

Greg Midgette talks about the effects of 24/7 Sobriety — a program for defendants with alcohol-related offenses, based on swift-certain-fair principles. This episode was first posted in March 2021.
“Criminal Deterrence: Evidence from an Individual‐Level Analysis of 24/7 Sobriety” by Beau Kilmer and Greg Midgette.
***
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment” by Mark A.R. Kleiman.
"The Efficacy of the Rio Hondo DUI Court: A 2-Year Field Experiment" by John M. MacDonald, Andrew R. Morral, Barbara Raymond, and Christine Eibner.
”Punishment and deterrence: Evidence from Drunk Driving” by Benjamin Hansen.
“Efficacy of Frequent Monitoring with Swift, Certain, and Modest Sanctions for Violations: Insights from South Dakota’s 24/7 Sobriety Project” by Beau Kilmer, Nancy Nicosia, Paul Heaton, and Greg Midgette.
"Can a criminal justice alcohol abstention programme with swift, certain, and modest sanctions (24/7 Sobriety) reduce population mortality? A retrospective observational study" by Nancy Nicosia, Beau Kilmer, and Paul Heaton.
“Paying the Tab: The Costs and Benefits of Alcohol Control” by Philip J. Cook.
"Managing Drug Involved Probationers with Swift and Certain Sanctions: Evaluating Hawaii's HOPE." by Angela Hawken and Mark A. R. Kleiman.
"Washington Intensive Supervision Program: Evaluation Report" by Angela Hawken and Mark A. R. Kleiman.
"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.
”A Natural Experiment to Test the Effect of Sanction Certainty and Celerity on Substance-Impaired Driving: North Dakota's 24/7 Sobriety Program” by Greg Midgette, Beau Kilmer, Nancy Nicosia, and Paul Heaton.
 

Episode 43: Elizabeth Linos on police recruiting (REBROADCAST)

Elizabeth Linos talks about how to recruit more and different people to become police officers. This episode was first posted in January 2021.
"More Than Public Service: A Field Experiment on Job Advertisements and Diversity in the Police" by Elizabeth Linos.
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
"Behavioral Insights for Building the Police Force of Tomorrow" by Joanna Weill, Elizabeth Linos, Siddharth Mandava, Cecily Wallman-Stokes, and Jacob Appel.
"Thick Red Tape and the Thin Blue Line: A Field Study on Reducing Administrative Burden in Police Recruitment" by Elizabeth Linos and Nefara Riesch.
"A head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection" by Elizabeth Linos and Joanne Reinhard.

Episode 8: Amanda Agan on Ban the Box policies (REBROADCAST)

Amanda Agan talks about the effects of Ban the Box policies. This episode was first posted in July 2019.
***
Probable Causation is part of Doleac Initiatives, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. If you enjoy the show, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution. Thank you for supporting our work!
***
RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
"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
"Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Racial Discrimination: A Field Experiment" by Amanda Agan and Sonja Starr.
"The Unintended Consequences of Ban the Box: Statistical Discrimination and Employment Outcomes When Criminal Histories are Hidden" by Jennifer L. Doleac and Benjamin Hansen.
"The Effect of Changing Employers' Access to Criminal Histories on Ex-Offenders' Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the 2010–2012 Massachusetts CORI Reform" by Osborne Jackson and Bo Zhao
"Does Banning the Box Help Ex-Offenders Get Jobs? Evaluating the Effects of a Prominent Example" by Evan K. Rose
"Ban the Box, Convictions, and Public Sector Employment" by Terry-Ann Craigie
"'Ban the Box' Measures Help High-Crime Neighborhoods" by Daniel Shoag and Stan Veuger
"Do Ban the Box Laws Increase Crime?" by Joseph J. Sabia, Taylor Mackay, Thanh Tam Nguyen, and Dhaval M. Dave
"Job Market Signaling through Occupational Licensing" by Peter Q. Blair and Bobby W. Chung
"Statistical Discrimination and the Choice of Licensing: Evidence from Ban-the-Box Laws" by Riccardo Marchingiglio
"The Effectiveness of Certificates of Relief as Collateral Consequence Relief Mechanisms: An Experimental Study" by Peter Leasure and Tia Stevens Andersen
"Criminal Records and Housing: An Experimental Study" by Peter Leasure and Tara Martin.
"Encouraging Desistance from Crime" by Jennifer L. Doleac

Episode 97: Allison Stashko on prosecutor elections and police accountability

Allison Stashko talks about prosecutor elections and police accountability.
“Prosecutor Elections and Police Killings” by Allison Stashko and Haritz Garro.
***
Probable Causation is part of Doleac Initiatives, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. If you enjoy the show, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution. Thank you for supporting our work!
***
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“Collective Bargaining Rights and Police Misconduct: Evidence from Florida” by Dhammika Dharmapala, Richard H. McAdams, and John Rappaport.
“Preventing the Use of Deadly Force: The Relationship Between Police Agency Policies and Rates of Officer-Involved Gun Deaths” by Jay T. Jennings and Meghan E. Rubado.
“Misdemeanor Prosecution” by Amanda Agan, Jennifer Doleac, and Anna Harvey.
“Prosecutorial Reforms and Local Crime Rates” by Amanda Agan, Jennifer Doleac, and Anna Harvey.
“Too Tough on Crime? The Impact of Prosecutor Politics on Incarceration” by Ashna Arora.
“The Effect of DA Elections on Public Safety” by Dvir Yogev. [Working Paper available from the author].
“Does Prosecutor Partisanship Exacerbate the Racial Charging Gap? Evidence from District Attorneys in Three States” by Sidak Yntiso.

Episode 96: Andreas Kotsadam on jobs and intimate partner violence

Andreas Kotsadam talks about how giving women jobs affects intimate partner violence in Ethiopia.
“Jobs and Intimate Partner Violence - Evidence from a Field Experiment in Ethiopia” by Andreas Kotsada and Espen Villanger.
***
Probable Causation is part of Doleac Initiatives, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. If you enjoy the show, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution. Thank you for supporting our work!
***
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“The Gender Wage Gap and Domestic Violence” by Anna Aizer.
“Unemployment and Domestic Violence: Theory and Evidence” by Dan Anderberg, Helmut Rainer, Jonathan Wadsworth, and Tanya Wilson.
“Women’s Access to the Labour Market and Domestic Violence: Causal Evidence from Mexico” by Manuel Davila.
“Family Types and Intimate Partner Violence: A Historical Perspective” by Ana Tur-Prats.
Episode 17 of Probable Causation: Ana Tur-Prats.
“A Mixed-Method Review of Cash Transfers and Intimate Partner Violence in Low- and Middle-Income Countries” by Ana Maria Buller, Amber Peterman, Meghan Ranganathan, Alexandra Bleile, Melissa Hidrobo, and Lori Heise.
“Theoretical Underpinnings and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Cash Transfers on Intimate Partner Violence in Low-and Middle-Income Countries” by Victoria Baranov, Lisa Cameron, Diana Contreras Suarez, and Claire Thibout.
“The Impacts of Industrial and Entrepreneurial Work on Income and Health: Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia” by Christopher Blattman and Stefan Dercon.
“Statistical Analysis of List Experiments” by Graeme Blair and Kosuke Imai.
“The Comparative Impact of Cash Transfer and Psychotherapy on Psychological and Economic Well-being” by Johannes Haushofer, Robert Mudida, and Jeremy Shapiro.
“Backlash: Female Economic Empowerment and Domestic Violence” by Sanna Bergvall.
“Paid Work for Women and Domestic Violence: Evidence from the Rwanda Coffee Mills” by Deniz Sanin.
“The Dynamics of Abusive Relationships” by Abi Adams-Prassl, Kristiina Huttunen, Emily Nix, and Ning Zhang.
“Sexual Harassment in Public Spheres and Police Patrolling: Experimental Evidence from Urban India” by Sofia Amaral, Girija Borker, Nathan Fiala, Anjani Kumar, Nishith Prakash and Maria Micaela Sviatschi. [Draft available from the authors upon request].
Episode 85 of Probable Causation: Sofia Amaral.
“Cultural Distance and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence” by Eleonora Guarnieri and Ana Tur-Prats.
“Violence Against Women at Work” by Abi Adams-Prassl, Kristiina Huttunen, Emily Nix, and Ning Zhang.
Episode 87 of Probable Causation: Emily Nix

Episode 95: Marcella Alsan on fear and the social safety net

Marcella Alsan talks about how Secure Communities affected take-up of safety net programs.
“Fear and the Safety Net: Evidence from Secure Communities” by Marcella Alsan and Crystal S. Yang.
***
Probable Causation is part of Doleac Initiatives, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. If you enjoy the show, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution. Thank you for supporting our work!
***
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“Immigration Enforcement and Economic Resources of Children with Likely Unauthorized Parents” by Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, Esther Arenas-Arroyo, and Almudena Sevilla.
“Distributing the Green (Cards): Permanent Residency and Personal Income Taxes After the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986” by Elizabeth Cascio and Ethan Lewis.
“Inside the Refrigerator: Immigration Enforcement and Chilling in Immigrant Medicaid Participation” by Tara Watson.
“Immigration and the Welfare State: Immigrant Participation in Means-Tested Entitlement Programs” by George Borjas and Lynette Hilton.
“Network Effects and Welfare Cultures” by Marianne Bertrand, Erzo Luttmer, and Sendhil Mullainathan.
“Understanding the Quality of Alternative Citizenship Data Sources for the 2020 Census” by J. David Brown, Misty Heggeness, Suzanne Dorinski, and Lawrence Warren.
“Does Welfare Prevent Crime? The Criminal Justice Outcomes of Youth Removed from SSI” by Manasi Deshpande and Michael Mueller-Smith.
“Does Immigration Enforcement Reduce Crime? Evidence from Secure Communities” by Thomas J. Miles and Adam B. Cox.
“Unintended Consequences of Immigration Enforcement: Household Services and High-Educated Mothers' Work” by Chloe East and Andrea Velasquez.
“The Labor Market Effects of Immigration Enforcement” by Chloe East, Philip Luck, Hani Mansour, and Andrea Velasquez.
“Immigration Enforcement and Public Safety” by Felipe Gonçalves, Elisa Jácome, and Emily Weisburst. [Draft available from the authors].
“Immigration Enforcement and the Institutionalization of Elderly Americans” by Abdulmohsen Almuhaisen, Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, and Delia Furtado. [Draft available from the authors]
“Take-up and Targeting: Experimental Evidence from SNAP” by Amy Finkelstein and Matthew J. Notowidigdo.
“Reducing Ordeals through Automatic Enrollment: Evidence from a Subsidized Health Insurance Exchange” by Mark Shepard and Myles Wagner.
 

Episode 94: Jesse Bruhn on the effects of gangs in Chicago

Jesse Bruhn talks about the effects of gangs in Chicago.
“Competition in the Black Market: Estimating the Causal Effect of Gangs in Chicago” by Jesse Bruhn.
***
Probable Causation is part of Doleac Initiatives, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. If you enjoy the show, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution. Thank you for supporting our work!
***
OTHER RESEARCH WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE:
“Predicting and Preventing Gun Violence: An Experimental Evaluation of READI Chicago” by Monica Bhatt, Sara Heller, Max Kapustin, Marianne Bertrand, and Christopher Blattman.
Probable Causation Episode 88: Sara Heller and Max Kapustin.
“Gangs, Labor Mobility, and Development” by Nikita Melnikov, Carlos Schmidt-Padilla, and Maria Micaela Sciatschi.
Probable Causation Episode 15: Mica Sviatschi.
“Growing Up in the Projects: The Economic Lives of a Cohort of Men Who Came of Age in Chicago Public Housing” by Steven Levitt and Sudhir Allude Venkatesh.
“Gangs of Medellin: How Organized Crime is Organized” by Christopher Blattman, Gustavo Duncan, Benjamin Lessing, and Santiago Tobon. [Unpublished Manuscript]
“Gang Rule: Understanding and Countering Criminal Governance” by Christopher Blattman, Gustavo Duncan, Benjamin Lessing, and Santiago Tobon.
“Can Precision Policing Reduce Gun Violence? Evidence from “Gang Takedowns” in New York City” by Aaron Chalfin, Michael LaForest, and Jacob Kaplan.
“The Effects of Civil Gang Injunctions on Reported Violent Crime: Evidence from Los Angeles County” by Jeffrey Grogger.
“Student Exposure to Proactive Policing: Heterogenous Effects of Los Angeles Gang Injunctions” by Jessica Wagner. [Available from the author upon request]