No Peace Without Punishment? Reintegrating Islamic State “Collaborators” in Iraq

How does variation in the severity of punishment affect public opinion toward the reintegration of former enemy “collaborators” after war? We study this question in the context of Iraq where the Islamic State, an armed rebel group, captured and governed a population of more than five million Iraqi citizens between 2014 and 2017. Building upon extensive fieldwork and interviews in Iraq, we designed a survey experiment that randomly varied the severity of sentences in hypothetical scenarios of civilians who supported the Islamic State in non-violent roles (e.g., cleaners, cooks, and wives of fighters). The experiment allows us to estimate the causal effects of punishment on attitudes toward reintegration. We find that a long prison sentence (fifteen years) does not increase the likelihood of participants’ willingness to allow the reintegration of former collaborators; instead, a noncarceral punishment (community service) has a small but statistically significant positive effect. Our most striking findings show that noncarceral and community-based justice mechanisms can significantly increase the likelihood of successful reintegration after punishment. Fifteen percent of respondents who were initially opposed to the return of former collaborators into their communities said that they would be willing to change their judgment and support reintegration if they were asked to do so by a tribal or religious leader, or if the offender completes a noncarceral rehabilitation program. These findings suggest that noncarceral, restorative, and community-based justice mechanisms may be equally or potentially more effective than long-term incarceration for achieving the objectives of rehabilitation and eventual reintegration of former nonviolent offenders. This Article advances the field of comparative empirical legal scholarship by providing an innovative experimental research design that can be replicated by scholars studying other contexts to help answer important questions about the causal effects of criminal justice policies.