Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP8506
Authors: Stphane Mechoulan; Nicolas Sahuguet
Abstract: We investigate possible racial discrimination in the context of discretionary parole release. We develop a rational choice model of release whereby a parole board must balance parolees' risk of violation with the cost of not releasing prisoners who may not violate their parole. A color-blind parole board would release all individuals below a certain risk threshold. To test this prediction, we take advantage of a unique data set that reports all prisoners released on parole between 1983 and 2003 in the U.S. We apply the outcome test methodology recently used to assess racial profiling in police search decisions. Here, a higher rate of parole violation within a group suggests that the parole board used a less restrictive paroling criterion, and is thus biased in favor of that group. To overcome the concern of inframarginality that traditionally plagues outcome tests we provide evidence that parole boards strategically time the release of parolees. In turn, both minority and White prisoners become marginal from the perspective of their probability of parole violation. Parole boards operating under an indeterminate sentencing regime appear biased against White prisoners whose violation rate is significantly smaller than that of African Americans. In contrast, this gap is smaller or null when there is no discretion in the paroling system. Further evidence rules out post-release discrimination. We propose different hypotheses to account for the evidence.
Keywords: discrimination; outcome test; parole release; race
JEL Codes: J15; K40
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| discretionary parole systems (P37) | bias against white prisoners (J15) |
| African American parolees (J82) | higher rate of violation compared to white parolees (K42) |
| discretionary parole systems (P37) | more stringent criterion for white prisoners (K14) |
| violation rates (K42) | more closely aligned in mandatory parole systems (P30) |
| parole board decisions (K40) | reflect bias aimed at equalizing outcomes (J78) |
| African American parolees (J82) | systematic underestimation of violation risks (D80) |