Leave the Door Open? Prison Conditions and Recidivism
利用附近监狱过度拥挤导致的囚犯分配变化，研究发现将囚犯从封闭式牢房转到开放式牢房一年，累犯率降低约6个百分点，对低教育程度囚犯效果最显著。
We estimate the effect on recidivism of replacing time served in a common closed-cell prison with time served in an open-cell one. We deal with the endogenous assignment of inmates to different prison regimes using variation that is driven by nearby prisons’ overcrowding. Switching regimes for a year reduces recidivism by around 6 percentage points. The effects are largest for inmates with low levels of education and are weak for violent and hardened criminals.