system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What does the literature say about the effectiveness of prison?

* Does serving time in prison make somebody less likely to commit another crime after they're released? 
* Is the fear of going to prison an effective way to deter potential criminals?
* Does prison prepare people to become productive society members?
* Does seeing somebody be sentenced to prison help ease the suffering of crime victims?

For all of the above, what alternatives have been researched? Are they more or less effective than prison?

Are there any books you can recommend that provide a well-researched non-biased overview of these topics?
gpt
Do prisons reduce crime? Yes
 > Levitt, S. D. (1996). The Effect of Prison Population Size on Crime Rates: Evidence from Prison Overcrowding Litigation. The Quarterly journal of economics, 111(2), 319-351.

Do prisons deter crime? Yes. 
> Levitt, S. D. (1998). Juvenile Crime and Punishment. The Journal of Political Economy, 106(6), 1156-1185.

Do prisons reduce crime through incapacitation? Yes. 
> Barbarino, A., & Mastrobuoni, G. (2014). The incapacitation effect of incarceration: Evidence from several Italian collective pardons. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 6(1), 1-37.

>Buonanno, P., & Raphael, S. (2013). Incarceration and Incapacitation: Evidence from the 2006 Italian Collective Pardon. The American Economic Review, 103(6), 2437-2465.

Do sentence enhancements have an incapacitation effect? Yes
> Owens, E. G. (2009). More time, less crime? Estimating the incapacitative effect of sentence enhancements. Journal of Law and Economics, 52(3), 551-579.

Do longer sentences deter crime? Yes. 
> Bell, B., Jaitman, L., & Machin, S. (2014). Crime deterrence: evidence from the London 2011 riots. The Economic Journal, 124(576), 480-506.

> Drago, F., Galbiati, R., & Vertova, P. (2009). The deterrent effects of prison: Evidence from a natural experiment. Journal of political Economy, 117(2), 257-280.

Are there diminishing returns to prison use? Yes, probably. 
> Buonanno, P., & Raphael, S. (2013). Incarceration and Incapacitation: Evidence from the 2006 Italian Collective Pardon. The American Economic Review, 103(6), 2437-2465.

> Liedka, R. V., Piehl, A. M., & Useem, B. (2006). The crime-control effect of incarceration: does scale matter? Criminology and Public Policy, 5(2), 245.

> Johnson, R., & Raphael, S. (2012). How much crime reduction does the marginal prisoner buy? Journal of Law and Economics, 55(2), 275-310.

Are private prisons worse than public prisons? No
> Dolovich, S. (2005). State punishment and private prisons. Duke Law Journal, 437-546.

Is prison recidivism a serious problem? Not as much as people think.
> Rhodes, W., Gaes, G., Luallen, J., Kling, R., Rich, T., & Shively, M. (2014). Following Incarceration, Most Released Offenders Never Return to Prison. Crime & Delinquency.

Does swift, certain punishment deter crime more than severe uncertain punishment? Yes
> Kleiman, M. (2009). When brute force fails: How to have less crime and less punishment. Princeton University Press.

Does prison gang membership increase recidivism? Yes
> Dooley, B. D., Seals, A., & Skarbek, D. (2014). The effect of prison gang membership on recidivism. Journal of Criminal Justice, 42(3), 267-275.

Do larger prison populations increase prison gang activity? Yes
> Skarbek, D. (2014). The social order of the underworld: How prison gangs govern the American penal system. Oxford University Press.