Citation

Vollaard B. Econ. J. 2013; 123(567): 262-284.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Royal Economic Society, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1111/j.1468-0297.2012.02522.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Making the length of a prison sentence conditional upon an individual's offence history is shown to be a powerful way of preventing crime. Under a law adopted in the Netherlands in 2001, prolific offenders could be sentenced to a prison term that was approximately 10 times longer than usual. We exploit quasi-experimental variation in application of the law across 31 cities to identify the effect on crime. We find the sentence enhancements to have reduced the rate of theft by 25%. The size of the crime-reducing effect is found to be subject to diminishing returns.

Language: en