History
According to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences:
"The rate of imprisonment in the United States is now four times its historic average and seven times higher than in Western Europe. Even more striking than the overall level of incarceration is the concentrated force of the penal system on the most disadvantaged segments of the population. One-third of African American male high-school dropouts under age 40 are currently behind bars."
Before we can move forward, we must understand how we got here.
From 1925 to 1975, the United States had a stable imprisonment rate of 100 -110 prisoners per 100,000 people, regardless of fluctuating crime rates. Over the next 35 years, the rate of imprisonment soared, even as crime rates decreased, tumbling markedly in the 1990s and continuing downward in the 2000s. Crime did not fuel the incredible increases in imprisonment rates -- changes in sentencing policies and practices, along with war on drugs policing practices (and enabling appellate court decisions), did.
Simply put, persons sentenced 40 years ago would have received a shorter prison sentence, or none at all, for the same crime committed today. Oftentimes, legal practitioners cannot adequately explain why they have imposed harsher sentences for individual cases.
But, if crime rates decreased, does this mean that incarceration works? Deterrence advocates think so. History and research tell us otherwise.
Crime did drop precipitously in the 1990s in many large cities around the USA. In New York City, that decline lasted into the 2000’s, and became the subject of Franklin Zimring’s The City That Became Safe. However, crime dropped in NYC while incarceration rates also dropped. That's strike one against the deterrence hypothesis. Strike two: looking at the national picture, incarceration rates continued to rise throughout the 1990s (and beyond, until the last couple of years), even while crime was dropping. Strike three: when we do state-by-state comparisons, we find states with smaller incarceration increases showing larger crime drops and states with large incarceration increases showing smaller crimes drops.
In short, crime and incarceration are loosely coupled. Moreover, there is a large and growing criminological literature, empirical and theoretical, that calls into question the claims of deterrence advocates. Unfortunately, deterrence advocates have dominated public and public discourse, thus disproportionately influencing public policy for the past forty years.
"The rate of imprisonment in the United States is now four times its historic average and seven times higher than in Western Europe. Even more striking than the overall level of incarceration is the concentrated force of the penal system on the most disadvantaged segments of the population. One-third of African American male high-school dropouts under age 40 are currently behind bars."
Before we can move forward, we must understand how we got here.
From 1925 to 1975, the United States had a stable imprisonment rate of 100 -110 prisoners per 100,000 people, regardless of fluctuating crime rates. Over the next 35 years, the rate of imprisonment soared, even as crime rates decreased, tumbling markedly in the 1990s and continuing downward in the 2000s. Crime did not fuel the incredible increases in imprisonment rates -- changes in sentencing policies and practices, along with war on drugs policing practices (and enabling appellate court decisions), did.
Simply put, persons sentenced 40 years ago would have received a shorter prison sentence, or none at all, for the same crime committed today. Oftentimes, legal practitioners cannot adequately explain why they have imposed harsher sentences for individual cases.
But, if crime rates decreased, does this mean that incarceration works? Deterrence advocates think so. History and research tell us otherwise.
Crime did drop precipitously in the 1990s in many large cities around the USA. In New York City, that decline lasted into the 2000’s, and became the subject of Franklin Zimring’s The City That Became Safe. However, crime dropped in NYC while incarceration rates also dropped. That's strike one against the deterrence hypothesis. Strike two: looking at the national picture, incarceration rates continued to rise throughout the 1990s (and beyond, until the last couple of years), even while crime was dropping. Strike three: when we do state-by-state comparisons, we find states with smaller incarceration increases showing larger crime drops and states with large incarceration increases showing smaller crimes drops.
In short, crime and incarceration are loosely coupled. Moreover, there is a large and growing criminological literature, empirical and theoretical, that calls into question the claims of deterrence advocates. Unfortunately, deterrence advocates have dominated public and public discourse, thus disproportionately influencing public policy for the past forty years.
Changes in the Adult Correctional Populations, 1980–2008
|
1980 |
1998 |
2008 |
% Change 1980 to 2008 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Prisons |
319,598 |
607,766 |
1,518,559 |
+375% |
Probation |
1,118,097 |
2,356,483 |
4,270,917 |
+282 |
Parole |
220,438 |
407,977 |
828,169 |
+276 |
Jails |
182,288 |
341,893 |
785,556 |
+331 |
Total |
1,840,421 |
3,714,119 |
7,308,201 |
+297 |
US Population |
227 million |
245 million |
304 million |
+34 |
Reported Index Crimes |
13.4 million |
13.9 million |
11.4 million |
-15 |
Index arrest rate per 100,000 |
1,056 |
1,124 |
763 |
-28 |