2514 HARVARD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 133:2460
rearrested and 0.6% are reconvicted for violent crimes; 2.7% are rearrested
and 1% are reconvicted for felonies.
We emphasize that these rates are much lower than those found in
most studies of criminal recidivism.
221
Indeed, our statistics suggest that
expungement recipients pose a lower crime risk than the general popu-
lation of Michigan as a whole. Although no general-population data are
available that directly parallel the figures in Table 4, the state does re-
port annual arrest figures. For comparison purposes, in the two-year
period from 2009–10, Michigan police made about 6.6 arrests per 100
adults in the population.
222
In contrast, using cases from approximately
the same time period, we calculate only 4.7 arrests per 100 expungement
recipients within two years of their having received an expungement.
223
This comparison is particularly striking given that expungement recipi-
ents (like people with criminal records generally) tend to have other
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
221
See, e.g., Donald P. Green & Daniel Winik, Using Random Judge Assignments to Estimate the
Effects of Incarceration and Probation on Recidivism Among Drug Offenders, 48 C
RIMINOLOGY
357, 370 (2010); Ilyana Kuziemko, How Should Inmates Be Released from Prison? An Assessment
of Parole Versus Fixed-Sentence Regimes, 128 Q.J. E
CON
. 371, 385–86 (2013); Cody Tuttle,
Snapping Back: Food Stamps Ban and Criminal Recidivism, 11 A
M
. E
CON
. J.: E
CON
. P
OL
’
Y
301,
315–16 (2019). For sources specific to Michigan, see, for example, David J. Harding et al., Short-
and Long-Term Effects of Imprisonment on Future Felony Convictions and Prison Admissions, 114
PNAS, 11,103, 11,106–07 (2017); C
hris
G
autz
, M
ichigan
R
ecidivism
R
ate
F
alls
to
I
ts
L
owest
L
evel
at
28
.
1
P
ercent
,
M
ICHIGAN
.
GOV
(Feb. 13, 2018), https://www.michigan.gov/som/0,4669,7-
192-26847-459956--,00.html [https://perma.cc/M9GJ-WKHH].
222
Arrest figures are summed across “total arrests” for persons eighteen and up in M
ICH
. S
TATE
P
OLICE
, 2009 S
TATE
A
RREST
T
OTALS
(2010), https://www.michigan.gov/documents/
msp/2009Annual_StatewideArrests_332334_7.pdf [https://perma.cc/TAA9-D5XV], and M
ICH
.
S
TATE
P
OLICE
, 2010 S
TATEWIDE
A
RREST
T
OTALS
(2011), https://www.michigan.gov/documents/
msp/2010_Annual_StatewideArrests_358704_7.pdf [https://perma.cc/5HDB-CWKA]. Population fig-
ures come from the 2010 Census. QuickFacts: Michigan, U.S.
C
ENSUS
B
UREAU
, https://www.
census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/MI/POP010210 [https://perma.cc/Q7KR-UZWB].
223
We calculate this number for the cohort of those receiving criminal-record expungements be-
tween December 2006 and December 2010, running for two years from each individual’s expunge-
ment date and excluding those individuals known to have out-of-state licenses; this is the most
recent complete expungement-receiving cohort for which we have two years of subsequent criminal
history data. Total arrests per capita over two years are higher than the two-year arrest rates for
the same population (like those we report in Table 4) because some people are arrested more than
once. See Alexi Jones & Wendy Sawyer, Arrest, Release, Repeat: How Police and Jails Are Misused
to Respond to Social Problems, P
RISON
P
OL
’
Y
I
NITIATIVE
(Aug. 2019), https://www.prisonpol-
icy.org/reports/repeatarrests.html [https://perma.cc/33J2-CV53]. There are no public data on the
number of unique individuals arrested in Michigan in any given period (for the closest we can find,
see Wanda Bertram & Alexi Jones, How Many People in Your State Go to Local Jails Every Year?,
P
RISON
P
OL
’
Y
I
NITIATIVE
(Sept. 18, 2019), https://www.prisonpolicy.
org/blog/2019/09/18/state-jail-bookings [https://perma.cc/2L9P-PTGM]), so the number of arrests is
the best metric to use for this comparison. We do not have a similarly authoritative source for the
number of convictions statewide. However, we can gain some insight into individuals who are
arrested multiple times from the Prison Policy Initiative: “Using nationally representative data from
the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), we find that at least 4.9 million individuals
were arrested and booked in 2017. Of those 4.9 million individuals, 3.5 million were arrested only
once in 2017; 930,000 were arrested twice; and 430,000 were arrested three or more times.” Jones
& Sawyer, supra.