About Me
Dr Rui Costa is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Performance and a Guest Lecturer in Economics at LSE. His research spans labour economics, crime and education. He received his PhD in Economics from University College London in 2018. He is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW).
Job market paper
Gangsta’s paradise: prisons and gang exposure in Brazil
This article provides evidence that exposure to gang control during incarceration can lead young offenders to a path of organised criminal involvement. We use an IV design that exploits short-run variation in exits from prison galleries to identify the effect of initial assignment to gang-controlled environments. When relatively more vacancies open in gang-controlled galleries, newly incarcerated young men are 9.8% more likely to be assigned to them. Using intelligence-based mappings of prison galleries and linked administrative data for 2017-2025, we find that initial assignment to a gang-controlled gallery increases the share of incarceration time spent under gang control by 76% and raises the probability of re-incarceration within two years of release by 51% relative to individuals first assigned to neutral galleries. The point estimates are larger among individuals with weak or no observed prior links to organised crime. Exposed inmates are also more likely to co-offend with new partners after release, particularly in gang-related offences, including with individuals connected to the criminal networks of former co-inmates. These findings show that prison allocation can expose marginal young offenders to organised criminal governance and facilitate their integration into wider criminal networks.
