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29 Crime & Delinquency 1 (1983)

handle is hein.journals/cadq29 and id is 1 raw text is: 



The Influence of Capacity

on Prison Population:

A Critical Review

of Some Recent Evidence

            Alfred   Blumstein
            Jacqueline Cohen
            William Gooding

            A recent study by Abt Associates (Abt/Carlson) purported to show that incre-
            ments to prison capacity would lead to growth in prison population to fill that
            added capacity two years later. That finding has rapidly attained broad circula-
            tion and widespread acceptance. The original conclusion was based on a coeffi-
            cient of 1.02 in a simple regression equation that represents change in prison
            population as a function of lagged changes in prison population and capacity.
            Reanalysis of the data shows that the original estimates resulted from a computa-
            tion error; when that error is corrected the coefficient estimate is reduced to .264.
            Furthermore, two data points were particularly influential in the regression
            analysis, and omitting them results in a coefficient of .095 which is not statistic-
            ally significant. Thus, the coefficient on which the original conclusion was based
            is eliminated in importance.
              It was unreasonable to expect valid results from so simplistic a model with no
            consideration of other exogenous factors (e.g., state budgets, court orders, public
            attitudes, degree of prison overcrowding) and without consideration of the si-
            multaneous effects of projected prison population in influencing the creation of
            prison capacity.
              This paper presents the reanalysis of the Abt data, and conducts more detailed
            analyses of the trends in individual states. During the late 1950s and 1960s,
            there was considerable spare capacity in state prisons, with no clear effect of that
            spare capacity on prison population.
              This critique does not demonstrate that there is no causal relationship between
            prison capacity and prison population. Some judges, no doubt, feel inhibited
            about sending convicted persons to crowded prisons, and providing more capaci-
            ty could well diminish that inhibition. Isolating the unique influence of prison ca-
            pacity on prison population, however, requires much more reliable data and care-
            ful formulations than have yet been displayed.


  ALFRED  BLUMSTEIN: Professor,  School of Urban and Public Affairs and Director, Urban
Systems Institute, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. JACQUELINE
COHEN:   Associate Director, Urban Systems Institute. WILLIAM GOODING: Research As-
sistant, Urban Systems Institute.
  We  appreciate the assistance of Kenneth Carlson of Abt Associates, Inc., in providing us
with the data that provided the basis for this analysis. The research was prompted by our par-
ticipation with the Panel on Sentencing Research of the National Academy of Sciences, and we
had a number of related discussions with members of the panel. We appreciate the computing
assistance of Christopher Koenigsberg.


CRIME  & DELINQUENCY, January   1983     1

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