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How Court Mitigation of Jail Overcrowding Affects Homicides

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561

Abstract

I analyze court orders issued between 1970 and 1988 that were intended to ad-
dress jail overcrowding. I find that these court orders led to a 21 percent reduction in jail populations but resulted in a 15 percent increase in homicide rates
outside of jails. Recent scholarly work suggests that jail incarceration rates could
have been reduced without significantly impacting crime. Thus, my findings
suggest that court orders may be an ineffective method for reforming jails.

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