A Policy Evaluation of Non-custodial Sentencing for First-time Offenders: Evidence From New Zealand
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Mitchell, Livvy
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Journal Article
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Informa UK Limited
Abstract
The economic theory of crime posits that crime rates will decrease if the expected costs of crime exceed the expected benefits. The expected costs of crime are positively correlated with the probability of apprehension and the punishment if caught. This paper tests the effect of non-custodial punishments on recidivism by exploiting a large-scale sentencing reform in New Zealand. Regression discontinuity design estimates suggest that, relative to short-term imprisonment, receiving a non-custodial sentence after the 1 October 2007 policy significantly increases first-time offenders’ recidivism rate by 8.7% after one year, 9.5% after two years, and 9.6% after five years. However, these effects largely stem from serious breaches of non-custodial sentence conditions, highlighting that administrative non-compliance, rather than substantive new criminal activity, is the primary driver of the increased recidivism.Description
Keywords
38 Economics, 3502 Banking, Finance and Investment, 3801 Applied Economics, 35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services, 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, 1401 Economic Theory, 1402 Applied Economics
Source
New Zealand Economic Papers, ISSN: 0077-9954 (Print); 1943-4863 (Online), Informa UK Limited, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), 1-21. doi: 10.1080/00779954.2025.2565630
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© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.