(Illustration by Eric Nyquist)
In 2022, the National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA), a trade group representing elected sheriffs, sheriffs’ offices, and sheriffs’ deputies across the United States, approached researchers to ask for help. In Flint, Michigan, a jail-based rehabilitation program spearheaded by the local sheriff appeared to be reducing recidivism and misbehavior. The program provided unprecedented access to education and job training but also introduced a cultural shift inside jails by treating incarcerated people like community members and students who had the capacity to change and grow. The NSA representative was seeking data and expertise: Was the program, Inmate Growth Naturally and Intentionally Through Education (IGNITE), working as well as it seemed?
Four researchers undertook a sophisticated statistical analysis of the IGNITE program, deeming it a success at reducing recidivism and misconduct inside jails. Marcella Alsan, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School; Arkey Barnett, a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Michigan; Peter Hull, a professor of economics at Brown University; and Crystal Yang, a professor of law at Harvard Law School, conducted a fine-grained analysis to estimate the causal effects of the IGNITE program pioneered by Christopher Swanson, a sheriff with 20 years’ experience and a master’s degree that focused on reform efforts inside jails and prisons.
Raw data from Flint’s Genesee County show declines in recidivism and incidents of misconduct that coincide with the program’s rollout in 2020. “But we wanted to take a deeper dive for a number of reasons,” Hull says. “First of all, the program started in September 2020, at the height of the pandemic. We wanted to make sure we were comparing apples to apples, estimating the causal effect of the program and not other things that might have been going on around the same time.”
On the ground in Flint, the researchers heard stories about the court system’s frequent idiosyncratic delays, prolonging the jail stay for people awaiting a trial. The researchers realized that court appointment delays offered something like a randomized controlled trial: Two people arrested at the same time spend different amounts of time in jail, not due to any reason other than congestion in the courts.
“We saw that we could use this scenario to estimate the effects of spending more time exposed to the program,” Hull says. “We developed a new econometric methodology to estimate the effects of spending time in jail, separating out the effects of exposure to the IGNITE program.”
The researchers’ next innovation was to use court delay variation both before and after the rollout of IGNITE. Comparing effects allowed them to discern differences between spending more time in jail overall versus spending more time in jail with the program in place. “We had the benefit of unprecedented access to rich administrative data from the jail,” Hull explains, “including when people went in, when they came out, and any misconduct they were charged with while in jail.”
The IGNITE program offers education and job training, tailored to individual backgrounds and interests. While some incarcerated individuals dedicate themselves to receiving their GED, others work toward a high school diploma, and still others take community college courses for credit. The same individuals might learn how to weld or obtain a commercial truck driving or food-handling license. IGNITE celebrates these accomplishments: Every four months, ceremonies are held where graduates can march wearing a cap and gown, guest motivational speakers appear, and family and friends join to recognize meritocratic achievements.
Unlike many costly rehabilitation programs, IGNITE repurposes space and resources, making it cheap. The Genesee County budget did not see significant increases with the rollout of the program. In fact, its success in reducing recidivism saved the government money.
Cultural change proved tricky for researchers to measure. They developed a mixed-method approach, using surveys and targeting barbershops, grocery stores, and other community spaces where individuals who had spent time in jail, or had a family member in jail—both before and after the launch of IGNITE—could answer questions about their relationship to law enforcement, hopes for the future, and more.
“For 50 years the challenge has been that we just haven’t known nearly enough about how to prevent crime in practice, or whether it’s even possible,” says Jens Ludwig, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. “This new study is so important because it points us in new directions that are both constructive and feasible.”
Find the full study: “‘Something Works’ in U.S. Jails: Misconduct and Recidivism Effects of the IGNITE Program” by Marcella Alsan, Arkey Barnett, Peter Hull, and Crystal Yang in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming
Read more stories by Daniela Blei.