Can incarcerated criminals be (re)integrated into the political system?

Responsible researcher: Pedro Jorge Holanda Alves

Article title : CAN INCARCERATED FELONS BE (RE)INTEGRATED INTO THE POLITICAL SYSTEM? RESULTS FROM A FIELD EXPERIMENT

Article authors : Alan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, Marc Meredith, Daniel R. Biggers and David J. Hendry Aarhus

Intervention Location : Connecticut, United States

Sample Size : 6,280 observations

Sector : Economic Policy and Governance

Type of Intervention : Effect of imprisonment rates on political participation

Variable of Main Interest : Votes of newly freed people

Evaluation method: Experimental Evaluation (RCT)

Policy Problem

In the United States, an increase in adult population participation in crime has been observed over the last few decades. With the exception of Maine and Vermont, all states require that any violation of the law that results in imprisonment has disqualification from voting as one of its punishments. Some of the states are stricter and even after the criminal's discharge from the judicial system. With a large number of individuals who are serving or have served prison sentences, the deprivation of the right to vote has important consequences for electoral results and the participation of these individuals can be decisive for the democratic result. However, few of these individuals know that they have the right to vote even after breaking the law and in other cases, individuals are afraid of how the population will act in certain situations.

Is there any type of policy that can make ex-convicts integrate into political life? The criminal's contact with the justice system can generate disturbances for those convicted and establish negative associations with the government, so that imprisonment leads to a reduction in political participation. In recent years, several states have adopted policies and reforms to increase the participation of criminals at the polls. Are these efforts effective? Is it possible that these criminals can be convinced to register and vote?

To answer these questions, Gerber et al. (2014) carry out a field experiment conducted in Connecticut with the aim of evaluating the effectiveness of efforts to encourage released criminals to register and vote. Connecticut is a state in the United States neighboring the state of Massachusetts, in which legally, people who have already served their sentences have civil rights just like any other person and newly freed or paroled criminals have the freedom to register and vote.

 Assessment Context

The state of Connecticut is a region that establishes several steps that disenfranchise already tried felons, but at the same time, restores voting rights once a felon has completed certain steps. If a felon is convicted and has a voter registration, that registration is expunged from the active voter. Therefore, after the period of serving their sentence, now former criminals must know that they can register again and must do so to become eligible.

Working in conjunction with the Connecticut secretary of state, the authors randomly selected unregistered released felons who were eligible to register and vote. The research separated these individuals into two groups, in which one of them received treatment by receiving a publicity message informing the released criminals of their eligibility to participate, while in the other group there was no contact.

Policy Details

For the experimental design, the Connecticut Secretary of State provided all monthly records of all individuals convicted of a crime between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2012 and the list of all individuals released from prison and released from liberty. conditional during that same period. In total, the authors identify 6,441 records of former criminals who had been convicted of less serious crimes and were still out of prison. To identify active records, the authors compared the list of ex-criminals with an electoral file issued on August 22, 2012. To gather the information, the date of birth, name and address information were used.

Then, these records were randomly distributed into three groups, 3,218 of the cases were allocated to the group of individuals who did not receive information about voting (control group) and two different treatment groups, where each will have 1,611 and 1,612 cases, respectively. In addition to randomization, comparisons of control and treatment groups do not show imbalances of observations by age, time since release from prison, time served in prison, and attendance behavior in 2008. After excluding some inconsistencies, the authors maintain 6,280 records, where 3,134 of them were the control group and 3,146 for the two treatment groups (1,574 and 1,572).

Methodology Details

With a correctly adopted experiment, it is possible to apply a simple linear regression method, being the first method to be adopted by the authors. In a mean difference test between the two treated groups, the results already show that the treatments had great results and that there appears to be little difference between the two treatments. For this reason, all subsequent analyzes were performed using both treatments together and considering only comparisons between the pooled treatments and control groups.

However, as not all correspondence was delivered, this result is limited by the estimates representing Intent to Treat (ITT), which are likely substantially lower than if the authors had been able to contact the entire treatment group. (UNTIL). Therefore, the authors also use a simple two-stage linear regression method in the estimations with the objective of finding the local average treatment effect (LATE)

Approximately one week before the mail-in registration period (and two weeks before the in-person registration deadline), each ex-offender in both treaty groups received an envelope bearing the State Secretary's seal providing general information regarding upcoming elections, civic duties and voting responsibility and informing them that they were eligible to vote. In one treaty group, the envelope contained “guarantee” and contained only this cited information. In the other group of treaties, the envelope contained “expanded assurance” and there was an additional paragraph that alleviated any concerns related to how their criminal status could cause them to be rejected at the polls or any public embarrassment.

To analyze the results, two periods are separated: first, the authors analyze the registration number for the November 2012 election and the rating in the elections of that same year. Next, the same experiment was analyzed using post-election data, provided in January 2013. Individuals who were not found in the post-election file were coded as individuals who did not register or vote.

Results

As the experiment is capable of being carried out in a randomized manner with small biases, the authors analyze their experiment using a simple linear regression. As a test of the consistency of the results, the authors analyze the regression only with the simple specification of the treatment and also with the inclusion of other variables. Their results indicate that regardless of the specification, the estimates remain unchanged and indicate that the postal policy increases the probability of registration by 1.8 percentage points. The results also show that for those individuals who did not vote in 2008, this result was also significant, presenting an increase of approximately 0.9 percentage points in the probability of these individuals voting. This means that receiving a single letter from the Secretary of State predicts an increase in registration numbers to 7.8% (6.0 + 1.8) and voter turnout by 4.2% (3.3 + 0.9) .

Who are these mobilized criminals? In short, these results show consistency that only a part of the criminal population is interested in politics and is easily mobilized to get involved in electoral politics. Those individuals who voted in 2008 are those who respond best to outreach efforts. In other words, simple publicity to remind criminals makes former criminals much more likely to vote again.

 The results also show that released felons who received a message informing them were 1.8 percentage points more likely to register and 0.9 percentage points more likely to vote in the November 2012 election. represent a proportional increase in registration and voting rates by about 30%.

Public Policy Lessons

The authors' conclusions indicate that simple policy interventions designed to encourage released criminals appear to be worthwhile. Given that simple contact generated these effects, this research suggests that more sustained outreach could be even more effective. These results show the clear value of experimental testing in reaching a population that is restricted but also important and growing.

Reference:

GERBER, Alan S. et al. Can incarcerated felons be (Re)integrated into the political system? Results from a field experiment. American Journal of Political Science, vol. 59, no. 4, p. 912-926, 2015.