Why Prosecuting Nonviolent Misdemeanor Offenses Yields Poorer Outcomes

The Issue 

In March of 2021, “Misdemeanor Prosecution” was publicly released with great fanfare, and for good reasons. In it, economists Amanda Agan (Rutgers), Jennifer Doleac (Texas A&M), and Anna Harvey (NYU) offered striking new insight into the impact that prosecution of nonviolent, misdemeanor cases has on public safety. They analyzed 20 years of administrative data (2000-2020) from the Suffolk County (MA) District Attorney’s Office (SCDAO), leveraging the quasi-random assignment of nonviolent misdemeanor cases to arraigning Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs) to isolate the net causal effect of prosecuting misdemeanor cases at the margins on defendants’ future penal system involvement. They found that within two years of the initial case, marginal misdemeanor defendants who were prosecuted were more likely to be arrested, charged, prosecuted, and convicted of another crime. Importantly, the effects were largest among first-time defendants. The researchers concluded that the prosecution of nonviolent misdemeanor offenses does not deter crime; instead, it increases it.

The Research Question 

Why does the prosecution of nonviolent misdemeanor offenses yield significantly worse outcomes relative to not prosecuting similar cases? Specifically, how does the prosecution of nonviolent misdemeanor cases affect future criminal legal system involvement? And how does the prosecution of such cases impact other areas of individuals’ lives downstream? When assessing the extent and nature of harms done because of penal system interventions, prosecution’s downstream effects must be considered as well. 
 

The Study 

To address the research questions, my research team and I will conduct in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 75 matched pairs of marginal defendants arrested for nonviolent misdemeanor offenses, including one defendant who was prosecuted and another person who was not -- i.e., people for whom different arraigning DAs made different decisions about whether to prosecute. Through these interviews, we hope to reveal how the decision to prosecute or not, all things equal, comes to make an enormous difference in future criminal legal system involvement, but also how it comes to inform other domains of individuals’ lives for years to come. 

To determine why prosecuting marginal defendants increases the likelihood of future penal system involvement, study participants will be queried about all aspects of criminal case processing, from arrest to the decision to prosecute to case resolution, including about how the various stages of criminal case processing affected different aspects of their lives -- arrest, conviction, and incarceration; pretrial detention; court hearings and obligations -- including but not limited to how prosecution affected the strength of social bonds and thus sources of informal social control; employment status and experiences; socio-emotional health and well-being; and housing stability. Each of these factors is known to have a strong effect on penal system involvement. 

We are also interested in prosecution’s downstream effects. Specifically, what impact will prosecution (versus nonprosecution) have had on individuals’ socio-emotional health and well-being; housing stability; the barriers that individuals face in access to employment opportunities; the quality and quantity of social connections, including the strength of attachments to family and community and the quality and quantity of institutional connections; debt accumulation; and trust in the law and legal authorities. It is through empirical considerations of these issues that we will gain a deeper, more thorough understanding of the social costs associated with prosecuting marginal, nonviolent misdemeanor offenses. 

This work has been supported (in part) by Grant # 2105-32413 from the Russell Sage Foundation. Any opinions expressed are those of the principal investigator(s) alone and should not be construed as representing the opinions of the Foundation.