@article{97576b1f211242ae86cf1f646749ec03,
title = "Misgovernance and Human Rights: The Case of Illegal Detention without Intent",
abstract = "Existing explanations of human rights abuses emphasize a strategic logic of repression. Yet certain classes of abuses may arise absent the intent to repress because of the misaligned bureaucratic incentives of state agents. To separate accounts of strategic repression from bureaucratic incentives, we study the responses of state agents working within the Haitian criminal justice system to a randomized, free legal assistance intervention for detainees held in illegal pretrial detention. Legal assistance addresses moral hazard problems of the bureaucrats responsible for processing cases. We demonstrate that legal assistance accelerates case advancement and liberation, in line with the view that large-scale human rights abuses in the justice system can result from poor governance and not repressive intent.",
author = "Tara Slough and Christopher Fariss",
note = "Funding Information: For helpful comments, we thank Nicole Bonoff, Geoff Dancy, Micah Gell‐Redman, Donald Green, Mai Hassan, Macartan Humphreys, Noah Nathan, Dan Smith, Jack Snyder, Michael Ting, Elsa Voytas, and three anonymous referees; panel participants at the Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Political Science Association, the Harvard Experiments Working Group, NEWEPS‐9 conferences; and workshop participants at University of Illinois, University of Konstanz, University of Southern California, University of Durham, University of Nottingham, University of Zurich, WZB Social Science Center, and Yale University. Many thanks to Frantzdy Herve, Gerard Fontain, Marceau Edouard, and Josh Pazour for expert guidance. The project was funded by a USAID Impact Evaluation Grant 2015–17 (Contract No. GS‐10F‐0033M/AID‐OAA‐M‐13‐00013 Tasking 031), and Slough's work was supported in part by NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, DGE‐11‐44155. All errors are our own. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright}2020, Midwest Political Science Association",
year = "2021",
month = jan,
doi = "10.1111/ajps.12529",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "65",
pages = "148--165",
journal = "American Journal of Political Science",
issn = "0092-5853",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "1",
}