The effect of Ruiz v. Estelle on crime in Texas.

Abstract

I examine the effects of a 1980 Texas District Court ruling that ruled the conditions in the Texas prison system unconstitutional. In particular, I analyze its effects on crime and incarceration. I use a difference-in-differences estimation strategy to estimate these effects, and I implement the synthetic control method of Abadie, Diamond, and Hainmueller (2010) as a robustness check.