UC Berkeley The Charles H. Percy Undergraduate Grant for Public Affairs Research Papers -

A research article evaluating effects of incarceration decline on local crime rates. Study uses crime data from the California Criminal Justice Statistics Center, California Jail Profile Survey, CDCR, cross-county differences, and synthetic cohort analysis of state crime rates in California. Study proposes that prison downsizing does not affect public safety and the prison population reduction has no effect on levels of crime.

Magnus Lofstrom is policy director of corrections and a senior fellow at PPIC. Steven Raphael is a professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley whose research focuses on the economics of low-wage labor markets, housing, and the economics of crime and corrections.

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^{Keywords: Crime, incapacitation, incarceration, prison, realignment, reform}