Expungement mechanisms allow first-time offenders to seal their criminal record. Theory predicts that the stigma of a criminal record can hinder the reintegration of criminals for whom legal activities are less lucrative. In theory, expungements priced at the reservation level can facilitate the reintegration of criminals without making first-time crime more attractive. This paper considers a behavioral perspective and offers experimental evidence about the impact of expungements priced at different levels. To do this, we set up a laboratory experiment where subjects repeatedly face opportunities to commit crime (take money from another subject). In addition to stochastic formal sanctions – imposed by the experimenter – we introduce endogenously determined social sanctions. In our main treatments of interest, subjects who choose the wrongful action have the opportunity to expunge their record prior to the second stage, thus avoiding social sanctions as long as they do not recidivate. Overall, our experiment shows that, from a general deterrence perspective, it is better to implement expungements at very high prices. We offer an explanation for this result based on the idea that the price of expungements may signal the moral reprehensibility of the offense.

删除机制允许初犯者加盖犯罪记录。理论预测，犯罪记录的污名化会阻碍其法律活动利润较低的犯罪分子的重返社会。从理论上讲，按保留价计价的销毁物品可以促进犯罪分子的重返社会，而不会使首次犯罪更具吸引力。本文考虑了行为的观点，并提供了实验证据，说明了不同级别定价的删除操作的影响。为此，我们建立了一个实验室实验，让受检者反复面临犯罪的机会（从另一受检者那里获取金钱）。除了由实验人员施加的随机正式制裁之外，我们还引入了由内生确定的社会制裁。在我们感兴趣的主要治疗方法中，选择不当行为的受试者有机会在第二阶段之前删除其记录，从而避免了只要不放弃就可以避免受到社会制裁。总体而言，我们的实验表明，从一般威慑的角度来看，最好以很高的价格实施清除。我们基于以下事实提出对此结果的解释：删除的价格可能标志着犯罪的道义上的可理解性。