Abstract
Much of the debate about the costs and benefits of “three-strikes” laws for repeat felony offenders is implicitly demographic, relying on unexamined assumptions about prison population dynamics. However, even state-of-the-art analysis has omitted important demographic details. We construct a multistate life-table model of population flows to and from prisons, incorporating age-specific transition rates estimated from administrative data from Florida. We use the multistate life-table model to investigate patterns of prison population growth and aging under many variants of three-strikes laws. Our analysis allows us to quantify these demographic changes and suggests that the aging of prison populations under three-strikes policies will Significantly undermine their long-run effectiveness.
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Schmertmann, C.P., Amankwaa, A.A. & Long, R.D. Three strikes and you're out: Demographic analysis of mandatory prison sentencing. Demography 35, 445–463 (1998). https://doi.org/10.2307/3004013
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3004013