A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Does sentence length affect the risk for criminal recidivism? A quasi-experimental study of three policy reforms in Sweden

  2022. Enes Al Weswasi (et al.). Journal of Experimental Criminology

  Article

  Objectives This study examines the relationship between incarceration time and post-release recidivism among first-time incarcerated adult offenders.

  Methods A quasi-experimental design was adopted consisting of three policy reforms that were treated as separate natural experiments. While holding imposed sentence length constant, these policy reforms either decreased or increased the required share of a sentence inmates needed to be incarcerated before being eligible for parole. Data consisted of large-scale administrative records containing all convictions for the Swedish cohorts born in 1958 and later.

  Results Results indicate that neither increased nor decreased incarceration time had a statistically significant effect on post-release recidivism, irrespective of how recidivism was measured.

  Conclusions Findings reveal little evidence for incarceration time having a criminogenic or specific preventive effect on post-release recidivism.

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• Estimating the incapacitation effect among first-time incarcerated offenders

  2024. Enes Al Weswasi. European Journal of Criminology

  Article

  Objectives: To estimate how many offenses are averted through the incapacitation of first-time incarcerated offenders with sentences of two years or less. Methods: The counterfactual challenge of estimating criminal acts that would have been committed had the offender not been incarcerated is approached utilizing a matching design. Data comprise all offenders convicted in Sweden in 2018, matched on a vector of time-stable and time-varying covariates drawn from an extensive set of Swedish registers. Each incarcerated offender is matched to a nonincarcerated offender whose offending frequency is used to infer the incapacitation effect. Full sample estimates are provided as well as subgroup estimates for males, females, and various risk groups. Results: The annual incapacitation effect for first-time incarcerated offenders is estimated to be 0.53 when measured as the number of averted convictions and 1.14 when measured as the number of averted offenses that would have resulted in a conviction. For males, the annual number of convictions averted through incapacitation is 0.51, and for females 0.37. For the highest risk group, the annual number of averted convictions is 1.22, and the number of averted offenses resulting in conviction is 2.55. For offenders in the low-to-medium risk groups, the corresponding figures are approximately 0.31 averted convictions and approximately 0.68 averted offenses. Conclusion: For first-time incarcerated offenders, the incapacitation effect is modest and the heterogeneous effects found across different risk groups warrant considering whether the crime-preventive effect is sufficiently large for low-risk inmates and whether noncustodial sanctions might constitute an alternative that would ease overcrowding without producing any considerable risk for costs in terms of recidivism.

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Show all publications by Enes Al Weswasi at Stockholm University