• DOI:10.2139/SSRN.2711024
• Corpus ID: 121189077

Reducing Crime Through Expungements

@article{Mungan2017ReducingCT,
  title={Reducing Crime Through Expungements},
  author={Murat C. Mungan},
  journal={Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization},
  year={2017},
  volume={137},
  pages={398-409}
}

• Murat C. Mungan
• Published 1 May 2017
• Law
• Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

Expungement refers to the legal practice of having one's criminal record sealed. These legal devices lower the visibility of a person's criminal record, and thereby reduce the informal sanctions that may be imposed on him. This reduction is enjoyed by the ex-convict only if he does not become a repeat offender, because otherwise he re-obtains a criminal record. Thus, the value a person attaches to having his record expunged is inversely related to his criminal tendency. Therefore, by making expungements costly, the criminal justice system can sort out low criminal tendency individuals – who are unlikely to recidivate – from people who have high criminal tendencies. Moreover, the availability of expungements does not substantially affect a first time offender's incentive to commit crime, because one incurs a cost close to the reduction in informal sanctions that he enjoys by sealing his criminal record. On the other hand, expungements increase specific deterrence, because a person who has no visible record suffers informal sanctions if he is convicted a second time. Thus, perhaps counter-intuitively, allowing ex-convicts to seal their records at substantial costs reduces crime.