I just stumbled across a reference to a study about recidivism in Massachusetts last century while reading "Against Empathy" by Paul Bloom, perhaps it'll intere

I just stumbled across a reference to a study about recidivism in Massachusetts last century while reading "Against Empathy" by Paul Bloom, perhaps it'll interest you. I'm much too lazy to type out the entire quote, but the author references the case of Willie Horton, convicted murderer, who was let out on furlough, who went on to reoffend. This caused outrage and the book doesn't go into more detail on whether the furlough program was suspended, but the author does reference a study at the time affirming that: > the program may have reduced the likelihood of such incidents. A report at the time found that the recidivism rate in Massachusetts had dropped in the fifteen years after the program was introduced and that convicts who were furloughed were less likely to go on to commit a crime than those who were not. in Paul Bloom, Against Empathy (2016), chapter 1, pp. 34–35. See also: Massachusetts Department of Correction, "The Massachusetts Furlough Program", May 1987, https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/MADOC/Furloughpositionpaper.pdf https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/MADOC/Furloughposition... This example is used in the context of a chapter where it is posited that rationally, we might best continue the net-positive furlough program, whereas our empathy with the victims might lead us to abolish it after a statistical outlier causes atrocities to happen. I'll avoid commenting further on the book as i haven't yet read it completely. Other than that very specific reference off the top of my head, i'd recommend looking at anything published about the Norwegian justice system. I believe it is quite progressive and mainly focussed on rehabilitation instead of punishment.