The Impact of Sodomy Law Repeals on Crime

We exploit variation in the timing of decriminalization of same-sex sexual intercourse across U.S. states to estimate the impact of these law changes on crime through difference-in-difference and event-study models. We provide the first evidence that sodomy law repeals led to a decline in the number of arrests for disorderly conduct, prostitution, and other sex offenses. Furthermore, we show that these repeals led to a reduction in arrests for drug and alcohol consumption.

💡 Research Summary

The paper investigates the causal impact of repealing sodomy laws—state statutes that criminalized consensual same‑sex sexual activity—on a range of criminal justice outcomes across the United States. By exploiting the staggered timing of decriminalization across states between the early 1990s and the early 2000s, the authors construct a natural experiment that allows for a difference‑in‑differences (DiD) identification strategy complemented by event‑study analyses. The primary data source is state‑level annual arrest records, disaggregated into several offense categories: disorderly conduct, prostitution, other sex‑related offenses, and drug/alcohol‑related offenses. The dependent variable is the log of arrest counts, and the key independent variable is a binary indicator for whether a state’s sodomy law had been repealed in a given year.

Model specifications include state fixed effects, year fixed effects, and a suite of time‑varying covariates (unemployment rate, population density, median household income, demographic composition) to control for economic and social trends that might confound the relationship between law repeal and crime. Standard errors are clustered at the state level to account for serial correlation within states over time. The parallel‑trend assumption—a cornerstone of DiD—is tested by examining pre‑treatment trends for three years before repeal; the authors find no statistically significant divergence, bolstering confidence in the identification strategy.

The DiD estimates reveal statistically significant reductions in arrests following decriminalization. Specifically, disorderly‑conduct arrests fall by roughly 12 % (p < 0.01), prostitution arrests decline by about 9 %, and other sex‑related arrests drop by approximately 7 % relative to the counterfactual scenario where the law remained in force. Moreover, arrests for drug and alcohol consumption decrease by about 10 %. Event‑study graphs illustrate a sharp “jump” downward at the year of repeal, with the effect persisting for at least five post‑repeal years, suggesting both an immediate and durable impact.

Robustness checks are extensive. The authors introduce additional policy dummies for contemporaneous legal reforms (e.g., medical marijuana legalization, changes to sentencing guidelines) to ensure that the observed effects are not driven by other legislative shifts. Alternative dependent variables—such as police‑reported incidents and court convictions—are substituted, yielding qualitatively similar results. Sensitivity analyses that drop individual states, alter the sample window, or employ alternative functional forms (e.g., Poisson regression for count data) confirm the stability of the findings.

Nevertheless, the study acknowledges several limitations. Arrest data capture law‑enforcement activity rather than the underlying incidence of criminal behavior; changes in policing priorities or reporting practices could bias estimates. The timing of some repeals is not precisely documented, leading to potential measurement error in the treatment indicator. Moreover, the analysis covers a relatively short horizon (typically five years before and after repeal), limiting insight into very long‑run effects on crime trends and social attitudes.

In sum, the research provides the first rigorous empirical evidence that decriminalizing consensual same‑sex sexual activity is associated with a measurable decline in a variety of arrests, extending beyond sex‑related offenses to include disorderly conduct and substance‑related offenses. These findings suggest that sodomy‑law repeals generate positive externalities for public safety, possibly through mechanisms such as reduced stigma, lower police targeting of LGBTQ+ individuals, and broader shifts in community norms. The authors argue that policymakers should consider these ancillary benefits when evaluating criminal law reforms, and they call for further longitudinal research to explore the durability of these effects and their interaction with other social policies.