UC Berkeley

This dissertation contains three related articles on peer effects and the economics of crime. The first article, “Distortion of Justice: How the Inability to Pay Bail Affects Case Outcomes” shows how pretrial detention increases the likelihood that defendants will plead guilty and will plead to less favorable terms. The second article, titled “Breaking Bad: Mechanisms of Social Influence and the Path to Criminality in Juvenile Jails” shows that peer effects in juvenile correctional facilities affects future crime, and discusses potential mechanisms. The third article, titled “Tests of Random Assignment to Peers in the Face of Mechanical Negative Correlation: An Evaluation of Four Techniques” presents a novel test of random assignment to peer groups and evaluates it alongside three others using simulations.