De-prosecution is a policy not to prosecute certain criminal offenses, regardless of whether the crimes were committed. The research question here is whether the application of a de-prosecution policy has an effect on the number of homicides for large cities in the United States. Philadelphia presents a natural experiment to examine this question. During 2010–2014, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office maintained a consistent and robust number of prosecutions and sentencings. During 2015–2019, the office engaged in a systematic policy of de-prosecution for both felony and misdemeanor cases. The city recorded the fewest number of criminal prosecutions in modern history, with a 70% reduction in the number of criminal sentencings. Philadelphia experienced a concurrent and historically large increase in homicides. This article employs a difference-in-differences analysis using a synthetic control method to estimate the effects of de-prosecution on the number of homicides in Philadelphia. The potential donor pool is composed of the prosecutors’ offices for the 100 largest cities in the United States over a 10-year period, with a quantitative categorization of the prosecutors’ offices used both as a variable and to exclude cities that may have been subject to a similar de-prosecution treatment. The synthetic control model estimates that de-prosecution has been associated with a statistically significant increase of 74.79 homicides per year in Philadelphia during 2015–2019.

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撤销起诉与死亡：撤销起诉对凶杀案影响的综合控制分析

取消起诉是一项不起诉某些刑事犯罪的政策，无论这些犯罪是否发生。这里的研究问题是，取消起诉政策的应用是否会对美国大城市的凶杀案数量产生影响。费城提出了一个自然实验来检验这个问题。在 2010-2014 年期间，费城地区检察官办公室保持了一致且稳健的起诉和判决数量。在 2015 年至 2019 年期间，该办公室对重罪和轻罪案件实施了系统的撤销起诉政策。该市记录了现代历史上最少的刑事起诉数量，刑事判决数量减少了 70%。费城同时经历了凶杀案的历史性大幅增长。本文采用差异中的差异分析，使用综合控制方法来估计撤销起诉对费城凶杀案数量的影响。潜在的捐助者库由 10 年期间美国 100 个最大城市的检察官办公室组成，检察官办公室的定量分类既用作变量，也排除了可能受到影响的城市到类似的撤销起诉处理。综合控制模型估计，取消起诉与 2015-2019 年间费城每年 74.79 起凶杀案的统计显着增加有关。潜在的捐助者库由 10 年期间美国 100 个最大城市的检察官办公室组成，检察官办公室的定量分类既用作变量，也排除了可能受到影响的城市到类似的撤销起诉处理。综合控制模型估计，取消起诉与 2015-2019 年间费城每年 74.79 起凶杀案的统计显着增加有关。潜在的捐助者库由 10 年期间美国 100 个最大城市的检察官办公室组成，检察官办公室的定量分类既用作变量，也排除了可能受到影响的城市到类似的撤销起诉处理。综合控制模型估计，取消起诉与 2015-2019 年间费城每年 74.79 起凶杀案的统计显着增加有关。