Punishment and Deterrence: Evidence from Drunk Driving

Abstract

Traditional economic models of criminal behavior have straightforward predictions: raising the expected cost of crime via apprehension probabilities or punishments decreases crime. I test the effect of harsher punishments on deterring driving under the influence (DUI). In this setting, punishments are determined by strict rules on Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) and previous offenses. Regression discontinuity derived estimates suggest that having a BAC above the DUI threshold reduces recidivism by up to 2 percentage points (17 percent). Likewise having a BAC over the aggravated DUI threshold reduces recidivism by an additional percentage point (9 percent). The results suggest that recent recommendations to lower the BAC limit to .05 would save relatively few lives, while increasing marginal punishments and sanctions monotonically along the BAC distribution would more effectively deter the drunk drivers most likely to be involved in fatal crashes.

Early Evidence on Recreational Marijuana Legalization and Traffic Fatalities

“…Their results were replicated with additional years of data in 2017 (Santaella-Tenorio et al, 2017). Hansen (2015) provides evidence with a regression discontinuity design (derived from BAC legal limits) that harsher punishments are effective in reducing drunk driving, though Anderson and Rees (2015) studied per se drugged driving laws and found that such laws do not lead to decreases in fatalities.…”

“…While our results suggest that the marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington did not lead to discernible increases in traffic fatalities, estimating the externalities of marijuana abuse and high driving is still crucial in determining future policy. Indeed, while Colorado and Washington have set the legal limit for high driving at 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood, we don't yet know if the sanctions for high driving will be effective in discouraging high driving given the local population of drivers affected by that threshold (Hansen, 2015).…”

A Few Bad Apples? Racial Bias in Policing

“…This definition is not innocuous, as there may be some reasons for differential treatment unrelated to observed driving speed that, while contentious in their use, are not specifically racial bias. For example, officers may be choosing treatment on the basis of how an individual's future driving responds to punishment [Gehrsitz (2015), Hansen (2015)] or the likelihood of paying a ticket [Rowe (2010), Makowsky and Stratmann (2009) ]. If individuals systematically differ by race in these characteristics, the racial disparities we observe may reflect the fact that are officers are statistically discriminating by using race as a proxy for deterrability.…”

None for the Road? Stricter Drink Driving Laws and Road Accidents

“…tion goes up (because the DDL has been lowered) or the probability of punishment increases, we should expect to see a reduction in drink drive offenses and, because of the BAC-collision relationship illustrated by the empirical literature, a reduction in motor vehicle accident rates (Becker, 1968;Ehrlich, 1973;Becker and Murphy, 1988;Sah, 1991;Levitt and Porter, 2001;Hansen 2015). In the DDL context, alternative models based on behavioral insights may lead to similar predictions on traffic collisions, even though they could identify different mechanisms.…”