Police, Prosecutors, Criminals, and Determinate Sentencing: The Truth about Truth‐in‐Sentencing Laws

This study explores the impact of truth-in-sentencing (TIS) legislation on police, prosecutors, and criminals. Truth-in-sentencing laws are determinate-sentencing laws that require violent offenders to serve at least 85 percent of their prison sentences. The standard economic model of crime suggests that TIS laws will deter violent offenders but also reduce probabilities of arrest and conviction. However, I explain that if states share the goals of TIS legislation, police and prosecutors may increase these probabilities. My theoretical model also predicts that the legislation will cause more trials and impose higher maximum prison sentences. Using a county-level data set, empirical results confirm that TIS laws deter violent offenders, increase the probability of arrest, and increase maximum imposed prison sentences. Truth-in-sentencing laws decrease murders by 16 percent, aggravated assaults by 12 percent, robberies by 24 percent, rapes by 12 percent, and larcenies by 3 percent. However, offenders substitute into property crimes: burglaries increase by 20 percent and auto thefts by 15 percent. Copyright 2002 by the University of Chicago.