Tough Talk
Does Drill Rap Cause Violence, and, Even if it Does, Should it Be Censored?
Tareeq Jalloh
Philosophy & Public Affairs, forthcoming
Abstract:
The critique that rap causes violence (causal claim) goes back as far as the 1980s, but today drill rappers are having their freedoms restricted based on instances of a causal claim. Police in the UK regularly remove drill videos from social media and streaming platforms, and drillers are being restricted from making music and associating with people via criminal behavior orders based on the claim that drill music causes serious violence. If this causal claim is true, it provides potential grounds for such restrictions on drillers. This paper argues against censoring drill on the assumption that it causes violence for three reasons. First, even according to the most charitable rendition of the causal claim, there is insufficient evidence to support it. Second, there are less speech-restrictive and more effective approaches to violence reduction than censorship-oriented approaches. Third, critics should not be advancing the causal claim due to its racist public meaning.
Holding Justice Accountable: Intensive vs. Extensive Margins in Prosecutor Elections
Dvir Yogev
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
American public opinion has shifted away from tough-on-crime policies, yet the conditions for supporting progressive reform on the ballot remain unclear. This study develops a theory of voting behavior in prosecutor elections. I utilized the recall of a progressive prosecutor to examine voters’ revealed preferences in a pivotal crime and justice politics setting. I show that the correct response to voters requires attention to legal reform’s intensive and extensive margins. Despite the media narratives, I argue that voters favor reforming the intensity of the criminal legal system; voters support reducing outcomes’ harshness but not limiting the scope of prosecuted behavior. This research also indicates that moral concerns drive support for decreasing the intensive margin, while opposition to changing the extensive margin is rooted in the desire to maintain deterrence. Politicians who intend to end mass incarceration should focus on reducing the criminal legal system’s intensive margin to gain political approval.
The Impacts of Parole Supervision
Luke Brinkman, Andrew Jordan & Derek Neal
NBER Working Paper, January 2026
Abstract:
We study the impacts of a reform to parole supervision in Illinois. The reform reduced the term of supervision for some parolees from 12 months to 6 months while many similar parolees continued to receive 12 months of supervision. We evaluate the impact of the reform using a standard difference-in-differences estimator, and we find clear evidence that the reform reduced prison re-entry rates. Sharp drops in rates of technical revocations drove these reductions. Rates of prison re-admissions linked to new crimes did not change. We merge data from Cook County Courts with our data on state prison admissions and releases, and we find no evidence that the reform increased crime rates among parolees. The reform reduced both the cost of incarceration and the cost of parolee supervision without creating harms to public safety.
Discrepancies in Measures of Racial and Ethnic Disparities: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice
William Sabol, Thaddeus Johnson & James Lynch
American Journal of Criminal Justice, December 2025, Pages 1374-1400
Abstract:
Estimation of racial/ethnic disparity in imprisonment rates in the United States is complicated by differences in data collection, definitions, and methods of counting such persons across data sources. This paper describes these sources of differences and their impacts on assessments of imprisonment disparity. Estimates of imprisonment rate disparities derived from state corrections administrative data diverge from those derived from self-report survey data. Changes in how survey data measure race and ethnicity affect inferences about changes in disparity. Administrative data show less Hispanic-White and Black-White disparity than self-report data, and the differences between them are increasing. Measures of disparity based on single-race classifications show larger Black-White disparity than those that are based on multiracial classifications. Various approaches to measuring race and ethnicity can affect conclusions about fairness in imprisonment. Therefore, disparities analysts should consider the multiple data sources and methods available to measure state imprisonment disparities, understand the assumptions behind the measures, and arbitrate the differences and similarities before drawing inferences about the extent of disparity in U.S. penal systems.
Economic Policy Uncertainty and Crime: An Asymmetric Relationship
Leo Doerr & Stefan Wilhelm
Economics & Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using a sample of US counties for the period 2010–2018, this study is the first to isolate the effect of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on crime rates. We employ an estimator that controls for joint endogeneity of regressors and find a crime inducing effect of rising uncertainty for violent crime. Complementary analyses reveal that this relationship is both asymmetric and transitory: spikes in uncertainty trigger temporary increases in crime rather than persistent level shifts, whereas declines in uncertainty fail to generate a comparable reduction. Finally, a comprehensive set of robustness checks confirms that our findings are not driven by changes in reporting behavior or uncertainty-induced shifts in policing policy, and that the main results extend to property crime as well.
On the role of parole candidates' language in parole board hearings
Joachim Büschken et al.
Journal of Criminal Justice, January-February 2026
Abstract:
Granting parole is viewed as a critical element of criminal justice for parole candidates. An emerging stream of research investigates the drivers of parole board decisions with respect to granting versus denying parole, the timing of parole and also recidivism of parole candidates released on parole. Procedurally, a parole suitability hearing is a verbal exchange between the parole board and the parole candidate. In a sense, this hearing provides candidates the opportunity to “present their case” for parole and for the board to obtain information about the candidate that is not available from their case. Given that the exchange in hearings is verbal, we investigate the influence of the language used by candidates in parole suitability hearings on parole board decisions. We harness the power of large language models such as OpenAI's GPT series of models to augment a variety of characteristics from their speech. We use these characteristics in a model to predict parole board decisions and find that their influence on decisions is significant. We also find that accounting for parole candidate's speech changes the role of other variables (crime, race) which suggests that standard parole prediction models miss a fundamental element of the parole decision making process. Implications and directions for future research and practice are discussed.
Can prisons move people into better jobs? A look at correctional vocational training programs and sectoral employment outcomes
Britte van Tiem
Criminology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Three-quarters of US prisons offer vocational training programs, which aim to place trainees in middle-skills jobs in specific occupational sectors post-release. These middle-skills jobs may more effectively reduce recidivism than the jobs that normally characterize the labor market experience of the formerly incarcerated, yet whether vocational training programs succeed in placing individuals into these “better” jobs is unclear. This paper estimates the impact of vocational training participation on sector-specific job attainment in the first year after release using an instrumental variable design. I find that trainees are more likely to secure employment in their training sectors compared to similarly situated peers. However, employment gains in target sectors are short-lived, challenging the notion that vocational training leads to stable employment in the jobs they target. Notably, however, trainees are more likely to remain employed and experience significant earnings gains later in the year. This suggests that trainees may be leveraging their initial work experience in training sectors to transition into employment journeys in other sectors. For a population facing steep labor market barriers, and given the sobering results of employment-focused reentry programs, this is a meaningful result, as it suggests that prison-based vocational training programs can successfully steer employment trajectories post-release.
When elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers: Organized crime violence and risks for migrants at the U.S.–Mexico border
Oscar Contreras-Velasco
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does the contestation of territorial control by organized crime shape risks for migrants at the U.S.–Mexico border? Drawing on survey data from nearly 5,000 undocumented migrants (Encuesta sobre Migración en la Frontera Norte [EMIF Norte]), official homicide data from Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehension statistics, this paper combines panel data analysis, negative binomial models, and hierarchical clustering to examine how different forms of criminal territorial control influence migrant risk. I find, first, that contested criminal control, where multiple groups compete for dominance, is associated with significantly higher homicide rates. Second, migrants crossing through these contested territories face higher cumulative exposure to hazards, even after accounting for demographic vulnerabilities and border enforcement. Third, risk is unevenly distributed across the border: migrants crossing through eastern sectors, marked by fragmented and volatile criminal governance, experience higher dangers than those crossing western corridors where criminal authority, while not monolithic, tends to be more consolidated or negotiated. These findings extend sociological theories of non-state governance by showing that criminal organizations can sometimes reduce acute violence when they achieve relative coordination or stability, but that competition and fragmentation undermine this order and amplify migrant vulnerability.
Thin markets and thick networks: Social and street capital in New York City's underground gun market
Brian Wade, Charles Loeffler & Rod Brunson
Criminology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study analyzes New York City's underground gun market based on 92 in-depth interviews with participants from high-violence Brooklyn and Bronx neighborhoods directly involved in firearm acquisition and circulation. Despite aggressive enforcement and strict gun laws, illicit firearms continue to circulate in disadvantaged neighborhoods where shootings remain concentrated. We identify a structure characterized by “thin markets and thick networks,” where firearms circulate through dense social connections despite limited transaction volume and restricted participation. Our analysis illustrates how a dual capital framework — distinguishing social capital (trusted relationships) from street capital (reputation and specialized knowledge) — explains stratified access and transaction outcomes. These dynamics demonstrate how markets persist under constraint through adaptive mechanisms: network dependence, capital requirements, and trust-based verification limit scale while simultaneously enabling circulation in the absence of organizational solutions. The findings extend economic and criminological accounts by specifying social mechanisms through which theoretically predicted market features — thinness, rationing, and trust-based exchange — manifest in practice.
Drugs, Gangs, and Social Media in Provincial England
Jack Warburton
European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, December 2025, Pages 803-820
Abstract:
One summer in a small English town, a group of youths fatally attacked another over his affiliation to a rival ‘gang’ before posting the footage on social media as a warning. The case shocked the small town, and highlighted the presence of gangs outside of the major urban areas that tend to be prioritised in the literature. When these areas are considered within the literature, it is most often through the paradigm of county lines, with the focus on the ‘invasive’ groups engaging in this trade, often overlooking the role of ‘home grown’ crime groups. Subsequently, this research seeks to answer the following questions: What do street gangs in the United Kingdom look like outside major urban areas and how do these groups use social media? Through the completion of a series of in-depth interviews, that were complemented with analysis of secondary sources including non-public and police files in ‘Countyshire’ (pseudonym) this paper reveals a number of key findings. Gangs outside major urban areas are just as sophisticated and criminally motivated as their urban counterparts, and that through attempts to control the drugs trade, they begin to display dimensions of rudimentary criminal governance. Additionally, this paper through a focus on social media, has shown how these technologies have benefitted gangs, with expressive use facilitating and establishing reputations for violence and success. Social media use has also been instrumental, allowing direct engagement in the drugs trade and the recruitment of young people into and eventual control within gangs.