Objectives:

To invoke behavioral economics theories of ambiguity in the context of offender decision-making, and to test the impact of ambiguity in punishment certainty on offender decisions.

Methods:

We leverage a quasi-experimental condition among a sample of drunk driving arrestees that are tested for alcohol use and subject to mandatory brief incarceration for a violation. The treatment condition relaxes a zero-tolerance alcohol rule, thereby introducing design-based ambiguity surrounding the certainty of punishment. We use Mahalanobis matching and propensity score weighting methods to estimate the impact of ambiguity on violations. We then interrogate this finding with complementary sensitivity analyses.

Results:

When facing the ambiguity condition participants are 27–28 percentage points (84–93 percent) more likely to violate program conditions after 30 days of supervision. We demonstrate that a statistical difference in violations due to ambiguity is still detectible at 90 and 180 days of supervision. These results are robust to alternative specifications and falsification tests.

Conclusions:

This study is the first to examine the impact of ambiguity on criminal justice program compliance using a quasi-experiment from the field. We further demonstrate the unintended costs to persons under supervision and jurisdictions of laxity in program design, which are applicable across criminal justice domains.

中文翻译：

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歧义性错误在犯罪者决策中的影响：实地证据

目标：

在犯罪者决策的背景下援引歧义的行为经济学理论，并检验歧义性在惩罚确定性上对犯罪者决策的影响。

方法：

我们在酒后驾车的被捕者样本中利用准实验条件，这些样本经过酒精测试，并因违反行为而被强制性简短监禁。治疗条件放宽了零容忍酒精规则，从而在惩罚的确定性周围引入了基于设计的歧义。我们使用Mahalanobis匹配和倾向得分加权方法来评估歧义对违规的影响。然后，我们用互补的敏感性分析对这一发现进行询问。

结果：

在面对歧义的情况下，参与者经过30天的监督后，违反计划条件的可能性增加了27-28个百分点（84-93％）。我们证明，在90天和180天的监督下，由于歧义导致的违规统计差异仍然可以检测到。这些结果对于替代规范和伪造测试是可靠的。

结论：

这项研究是首次使用现场的准实验来研究歧义性对刑事司法程序合规性的影响。我们进一步证明了在计划设计中受监管人员和宽松司法管辖区人员的意外费用，这些费用适用于刑事司法领域。