Impact of State Sentencing Policies on Incarceration Rates in the United States, 1975-2002

In order to assess the impacts of state-level sentencing and corrections policies in the United States implemented between 1975 and 2002 on state incarceration rates during that same time period, researchers conducted a two-phase study between November 2002 and March 2004. The first phase of the research involved building a framework for understanding the types of state-level sentencing and corrections policies in use between 1975 and 2002. Phase two of the project consisted of state-level data collection for all 50 states for all study years, 1975 to 2002. The researchers produced a dataset containing outcome variables that focus on the change and growth in state incarceration rates, non-policy control variables that were found in previous studies to be associated with changes in incarceration rates, and policy variables regarding sentencing structure, drug policy, time served requirements, habitual offender laws (HOL), and mandatory sentences.

为评估1975年至2002年间美国各州推行的量刑与矫正政策对同期州监禁率的影响，研究人员于2002年11月至2004年3月开展了一项两阶段研究。研究第一阶段旨在搭建分析框架，以梳理1975至2002年间美国各州所采用的各类量刑与矫正政策类型。本项目第二阶段则针对全部研究年份（1975年至2002年），收集全美50个州的州级层面数据。研究人员最终构建了一套数据集，其中包含聚焦州监禁率变化与增长的因变量、既往研究证实与监禁率变化相关的非政策控制变量，以及涵盖量刑结构、毒品政策、服刑时长要求、惯犯法（habitual offender laws, HOL）和强制性量刑在内的政策变量。