There is a better way to reduce crime than mass incarceration | Opinion

What lawmakers call “tough on crime” policies — things like longer prison sentences, stricter parole boards, and mandatory minimum sentences — have been in and out of fashion since the 1970s. For many years, the prevailing theory was that tougher sentences and higher incarceration rates would deter crime and keep lawbreakers off the streets.

But one of the biggest problems with mass incarceration and very long sentences is that they don't really seem to reduce crime – at least not to the extent that people think. And as my own research with Bill Bales shows, short-term incarceration actually leads to more crime.

Rather than reducing the likelihood of crime, “tough on crime” policies have resulted in far too many people in this country being incarcerated for longer periods than necessary – far beyond the average length of a criminal career, as my colleagues and I have reported. Today, there are nearly two million people in our prisons and jails, a disproportionate number of whom are black.

The Sentencing Project, an organization that advocates for effective and humane responses to crime, released a report in June that shed light on the limited role of mass incarceration in reducing America's crime rate after a peak in the 1990s. The report showed that 46 states have reduced both their incarceration rate and the number of people incarcerated. And Crime between 2013 and 2022.

That’s true. Almost all states have both Crime and incarceration in recent years.

Steven Durlauf and Daniel Nagin made a similar point several years ago, arguing that prison sentences and crime could be reduced without compromising public safety by moving from policies based on the seriousness of crimes to policies that emphasize increasing the certainty of detection and punishment.

Some crimes that saw an uptick during the coronavirus pandemic, particularly murders, are trending downward again, the Council on Criminal Justice reported last month. Elected officials should be aware of these trends and remain committed to basing their decisions on data, not assumptions.

We can continue to reduce incarceration rates while combating rising crime through policies that combine police and non-police strategies. The Council on Criminal Justice has outlined a series of actions cities can take now to save lives.

That's not to say that prison, or even long prison sentences, aren't sometimes necessary. But as several criminal justice experts have noted, we need to distinguish between people we're angry with and people we're afraid of.

It is the latter – people we fear – who must be imprisoned. But the question remains, for how long and at what cost.

The American prison experience has produced extreme ethnic and racial inequalities that have had long-term consequences for people after they are incarcerated, as well as for their families and communities. It has torn families and communities apart, weakened trust in law enforcement, and made our democracy less representative by disenfranchising those involved in the criminal justice system.

These consequences will resonate for generations to come.

Over the nearly 30 years I have studied this issue, I have come to believe that a far better way to get tough on crime is to look more intelligently at people and places than to rely on increasing incarceration numbers.

So what does it mean to “better understand people and places”?

That means we need to double down on interventions like early family/parent training and high-quality self-control development and change programs that reduce people's propensity to crime in the first place, as several meta-analyses I've led have shown. That means we need to expand violence interruption and hospital-based gun violence prevention programs that are grounded in public health concepts.

It is far better to reduce the likelihood of criminal acts in the first place than to focus on the type and duration of punishment later.

The Sentencing Project recently proposed other ways to keep people safe without resorting to mass incarceration, including reducing unnecessary judicial interventions, using community monitoring and programs as alternatives to incarceration, allowing a “second look” at long and extreme sentences, and eliminating long and extreme sentences altogether.

Everyone can help create better policies. You can inform your community that more incarceration is not the most effective response to crime problems and educate them about policies that work. Stand up against misleading reporting that is not based on facts. And elect politicians, prosecutors, and judges whose work is backed by evidence that makes our country safer.

Dr. Alex R. Piquero is a nationally and internationally recognized criminologist with more than 26 years of experience. He is currently a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology and a Distinguished Scholar in Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami. He previously served as Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a position to which he was appointed by President Biden in June 2022.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author.