David Bjerk

Making the Crime Fit the Penalty: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion Under Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

This paper empirically documents one way in which prosecutorial discretion may be used to dampen the effects of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Specifically, prosecutors can use their discretion over prosecution charges to circumvent a mandatory minimum sentencing law for some defendants by prosecuting defendants who were initially arrested for the crime targeted by the sentencing law for lesser crimes not covered by the law. I document the use of such discretion with respect to several state “three‐strikes”‐type repeat‐offender laws imposed throughout the 1990s, and I find that prosecutors become significantly more likely to lower a defendant’s prosecution charge to a misdemeanor when conviction for the initial felony arrest charge would lead to sentencing under a three‐strikes law. Moreover, accounting for such behavior is important, as I show that failure to do so can lead to overstating the effects of these laws on average sentencing by almost 30 percent.

The Differing Nature of Black-White Wage Inequality Across Occupational Sectors

The nature of racial wage inequality appears to differ across occupation sectors. Specifically, I find that all of the racial wage inequality in the white-collar job sector can be accounted for by controlling for the academic skill level of each worker, but almost half of the overall racial wage inequality remains in the blue-collar sector after controlling for each worker’s academic skill. Relatedly, after controlling for academic skill, I find that black workers are actually more likely to work in the white-collar sector than white workers. I show that these findings are consistent, and arguably directly implied by, both preference-based and statistical-based models of discrimination. However, omitted variable bias and measurement error also cannot be ruled out as possible explanations.

Racial Profiling, Statistical Discrimination, and the Effect of a Colorblind Policy on the Crime Rate

This paper develops a model of racial profiling by law enforcement officers when officers observe both an individuals race as well as a noisy signal of his or her guilt that depends on whether or not a crime has been committed. The model shows that given officers observe such a guilt signal, data regarding the guilt rate among those investigated from each race will not be sufficient for determining whether racially unequal investigation rates are due to statistical discrimination or racial bias on the part of officers. The model also reveals that when racially unequal investigation rates are due to statistical discrimination, imposing a colorblind policy on officers can increase, decrease, or have little effect on the crime rate, depending on specific characteristics of the jurisdiction and the crime in question.

Mandatory Minimums and the Sentencing of Federal Drug Crimes

The US federal mandatory minimum sentences are controversial not only because of the length of the mandatory sentences for even first-time offenders but also because eligibility quantities for crack cocaine crimes are small compared with those for other drug offenses. This paper shows that the impact of these mandatory minimums on sentencing is quite nuanced. A large fraction of mandatory-minimum-eligible offenders, particularly first timers, are able to avoid these mandatory minimums. Moreover, despite lower eligibility thresholds for crack-related offenses, a smaller fraction of those convicted of crack-related offenses are eligible for mandatory minimums relative to those convicted of other drug offenses. Furthermore, while being just eligible for a mandatory minimum increases sentence length on average, the impact is not uniform across drug offenses. Notably, sentences for crack offenders are generally sufficiently long such that, on average, sentences for crack offenders are not impacted by eligibility for a mandatory minimum.

In front of and behind the veil of ignorance: an analysis of motivations for redistribution

This paper uses a laboratory experiment to explore individuals’ motivations for redistribution. The laboratory results show that as income uncertainty diminishes, participants become more extreme in their preferences for redistribution. The findings suggest that for most people, the motivation for redistribution is financial self-interest—namely as insurance against future bad luck—rather than furthering equity. However, a non-negligible group of participants propose redistribution levels inconsistent with financial self-interest, where this group is primarily made up of those with the least to lose financially from making such a proposal, and the size of this group increases when participants can communicate prior to proposing. Survey data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and General Social Survey show that these experimental findings may help shed light on the way preferences for redistribution evolve with age in the real world.