Schmertmann C P, Amankwaa A A, Long R D
Center for the Study of Population, Florida State University, Tallahassee 32306-2240, USA.
Demography. 1998 Nov;35(4):445-63.
Much of the debate about the costs and benefits of "three-strikes" laws for repeat felony offenders is implicitly demographic, relying on unexamined assumptions about prison population dynamics. However, even state-of-the-art analysis has omitted important demographic details. We construct a multistate life-table model of population flows to and from prisons, incorporating age-specific transition rates estimated from administrative data from Florida. We use the multistate life-table model to investigate patterns of prison population growth and aging under many variants of three-strikes laws. Our analysis allows us to quantify these demographic changes and suggests that the aging of prison populations under three-strikes policies will significantly undermine their long-run effectiveness.
关于针对屡犯重罪者的“三振出局”法律的成本与收益的许多辩论都隐含着人口统计学因素，依赖于关于监狱人口动态的未经审视的假设。然而，即使是最先进的分析也遗漏了重要的人口统计学细节。我们构建了一个关于进出监狱人口流动的多状态生命表模型，纳入了根据佛罗里达州行政数据估算的特定年龄过渡率。我们使用多状态生命表模型来研究在“三振出局”法律的多种变体下监狱人口增长和老龄化的模式。我们的分析使我们能够量化这些人口统计学变化，并表明“三振出局”政策下监狱人口的老龄化将显著削弱其长期有效性。
