About

Steven Raphael is a professor and the James D. Marver Chair in Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on public policy issues related to social and economic inequality, urban policy, and criminal justice reform. As a faculty member, he contributes to the development of policy solutions aimed at creating a more just and equitable society, applying rigorous analytic methods to serve the public good.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law
• Psychology
• Business
• Criminology
• Accounting
• Economic growth
• Medicine
• Labour economics
• Economics
• Family medicine
• Social psychology
• Actuarial science
• Public economics
• Demographic economics

Selected publications

• Understanding Racial Disparities in Criminal Court Outcomes

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Employment Challenges Faced by People with Criminal Histories

  Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics JITE · 2025-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  People with criminal histories face many challenges in the labor market. How do the employment outcomes of people with criminal histories compare to those without? Which public policies best promote the reintegration of people with criminal histories into the workforce? Drawing upon data from U.S. household surveys and the extensive body of research exploring the employment challenges faced by people with criminal histories, I first document the employment challenges faced by those most likely to be involved with the criminal justice system. I then review research pertaining to policies intended to improve employment prospects for those with official criminal records.

  PublisherDOI

• A population‐level approach to distributional weighting

  Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics · 2025-05-14 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Distributional weighting to address concerns about diminishing marginal utility of income in benefit–cost analysis has been the topic of increased interest in recent years. Concern has been expressed about the practicability of distributional weighting, given limitations on data and on the analytical capacities of agencies. This paper contributes to a small but growing literature that attempts to provide guidance and real‐world examples of distributional weighting. We develop a methodology for calculating what we call ‘population weights’, which, once computed for a given population by an analyst, can be used by other analysts to implement distributional weighting on similar populations, without those analysts needing information on income distribution or the cost or benefit experienced by households at different income levels within those populations. These population weights can be calculated without knowing the costs or benefits received by households at different income levels, using proxies for cost or benefit that may be observable or about which, in the absence of data, assumptions can be made in some cases. We implement the methodology on an example regulation and present results that we believe provide useful information to decision‐makers, even in the absence of estimates of unweighted costs and benefits.

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding Racial Disparities in Criminal Court Outcomes

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  We construct a framework that defines optimal outcomes in criminal courts, and we use this framework to interpret and organize the existing literature on racial disparities in pretrial detention, sentencing, and community corrections outcomes.Existing research indicates that some actors within courts and within the agencies that implement the sentences that courts impose make decisions that are contaminated by racial animus or racially biased assessments of the recidivism risks posed by some offenders.However, the most important sources of racial disparities in case outcomes are numerous practices, regulations, and laws that are too punitive, i.e. their social costs are likely greater than any derived social benefits.Since minorities, especially Blacks, face arrest at much higher rates than whites, they bear large disparate impacts from such policies.

  PublisherDOI

• Santa Clara Public Defender Pre-Arraignment Representation & Review Team (PARR) 2.0 Study

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-04-18

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Can Restorative Justice Conferencing Reduce Recidivism? Evidence From the Make‐it‐Right Program

  Econometrica · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access

  This paper studies the effect of a restorative justice intervention targeted at 143 youth ages 13 to 17 facing felony charges of medium severity (e.g., burglary, assault). Eligible youths were randomly assigned to participate in the Make‐it‐Right (MIR) restorative justice program or a control group where they faced standard criminal prosecution. We estimate the effects of MIR on the likelihood that a youth will be rearrested in the four years following randomization. Assignment to MIR reduces the probability of a rearrest within six months by 19 percentage points, a 44 percent reduction relative to the control group. Moreover, the reduction in recidivism persists even four years after randomization. Thus, our estimates show that restorative justice conferencing can reduce recidivism among youth charged with relatively serious offenses and can be an effective alternative to traditional criminal justice practices.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Effect of a Pre-Arraignment Legal Representation Pilot on Pretrial Release and Criminal Case Outcomes

  Journal of Quantitative Criminology · 2024-11-19 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Objectives Low-income individuals facing criminal charges experience disproportionately high rates of pretrial detention and conviction. We study a pilot program in Santa Clara County, CA that aims to address this inequity by providing access to public defenders immediately following arrest. Methods The Santa Clara Public Defender agreed to provide pilot services one day per week, rotating the intervention day across weeks. Individuals booked on an intervention day were eligible for early legal representation, while individuals booked on control days received public defender services as usual. The study leverages the rotating treatment day to compare pretrial release and case outcomes between eligible individuals booked on treatment days and eligible individuals booked on control days. Results Pilot program participants were 28 percentage points more likely to secure pretrial release, and 36 percentage points more likely to see their cases dismissed, relative to comparable individuals who generally first meet with their public defender at arraignment. Conclusions Providing prompt access to legal representation could improve release and case outcomes for low-income individuals and the efficacy of public defense.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Santa Clara Public Defender Pre-Arraignment Representation & Review Team (PARR) 2.0 Study

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-04-18

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The Effect of Pre-Arraignment Legal Representation on Criminal Case Outcomes

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2023-05-01 · 2 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  Low-income individuals arrested on criminal charges face disproportionately high rates of pretrial detention and conviction.We study a novel approach to addressing this inequity: providing lowincome individuals with access to legal counsel immediately following their arrest.Focusing on a pilot program in a large urban county, we estimate the causal impact of early representation by a public defender on release and case outcomes, leveraging quasi-random variation in access to counsel pre-arraignment.Low-income individuals who met with a public defender shortly after arrest were 28 percentage points more likely to be released pretrial, and 36 percent more likely to see their cases dismissed, relative to otherwise similar individuals who would first meet with a public defender at their arraignment.These results suggest that providing timely access to legal representation could improve release and case outcomes for public defender clients.

  PublisherDOI

• The Effect of Pre-Arraignment Legal Representation on Criminal Case Outcomes

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Magnus Lofstrom

  36 shared

• Alissa Skog

  University of California, Berkeley

  33 shared

• Yotam Shem-Tov

  University of California, Los Angeles

  29 shared

• John M. Quigley

  29 shared

• Michael A. Stoll

  25 shared

• Harry J. Holzer

  23 shared

• Cynthia Bansak

  14 shared

• Eugene Smolensky

  University of California, Berkeley

  11 shared

Awards & honors

• Research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research
• Research fellow at the California Policy Lab
• Research fellow at the University of Michigan National Pover…
• Research fellow at the University of Chicago Crime Lab
• Research fellow at IZA, Bonn Germany