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Assessing Racial Disparities in Parole Release

Stéphane Mechoulan and Nicolas Sahuguet

stéphane mechoulan is Associate Professor of Public Administration, Dalhousie University. nicolassahuguet is Associate Professor of Applied Economics, HEC Montréal. We thank Hanming Fang, Nicola Persico, Aloysius Siow, Phil Curry, Paul Rubin, Hugo Mialon, Naci Mocan, Sarath Sanga, and seminar participants at HEC Montréal, Dalhousie University, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the University of Ottawa, Guelph University, the University of Waterloo, Ryerson University, a 2008 workshop at the University of Catania, the 2008 Canadian Law and Economics Association annual meeting, the 2008 European Association of Law and Economics annual meeting, the 2009 Econometric Society’s European meeting, the 2009 Société Canadienne de Sciences Economiques annual meeting, the 2009 Petralia Sottana Applied Economics Workshop, the 2011 American Law and Economics Association annual meeting, the 2011 Transatlantic Workshop on the Economics of Crime, and the 2011 Conference on Empirical Legal Studies for useful comments. We thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for financial support and Eik Swee for excellent research assistance.

https://doi.org/10.1086/680988
Abstract

In a rational choice model of parole release, a color-blind parole board seeking to minimize violations would release all prisoners below a certain risk threshold. To test this prediction, we extend the outcome-test methodology used in assessing discrimination in police searches. We overcome the inframarginality critique by taking advantage of strategic timing of release: within each racial group, violation rates are equalized for a given sentence length. We use the National Corrections Reporting Program data, which record all parole-release decisions in the United States. We find that violation rates are consistently higher for African American parolees, a result not consistent with a parole board bias against African Americans. This conclusion is robust to a variety of tests, including ruling out postrelease discrimination. Evidence on the timing of release suggests a policy aimed at limiting racial disparities in time served rather than in violation rates, which favors fairness over efficiency.

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ARTICLE CITATION

Stéphane Mechoulan and Nicolas Sahuguet, "Assessing Racial Disparities in Parole Release," The Journal of Legal Studies 44, no. 1 (January 2015): 39-74.

https://doi.org/10.1086/680988

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