Research speaks: The abrasive real consequences of decarceration

The local decarceration movement calls for widespread release of, and legal lenience with, criminals (a perspective that is perhaps compassionate in the abstract, but not for actual crime victims). However, most people in jail were incarcerated for violent activity, so is “emptying the jails” a legitimate strategy? For instance, San Jose is one of many cities that’s seen increased crime under pro-jailbreak policies. City Journal's Thomas Hogan's analysis of the implications of decarceration below.

Decarceration: Liberal policy groups like the Prison Policy Initiative, with the support of legal academics, have railed against “mass incarceration” in the United States for decades, asserting that the United States could free thousands of prisoners, even violent criminals, without affecting public safety. For their argument to make any sense, they have to push for the release of violent criminals because—as even leading decarceration advocate John Pfaff concedes—the vast majority of criminals are incarcerated for violent crimes. The decarceration advocates largely have seen their wishes granted. According to the Pew Research Center, by 2019, incarceration rates in America had fallen to the same level as 1995, then were reduced even further during the Covid-19 pandemic. How is that working out? The United States saw its biggest single-year rise in homicide in 2020, and the murder rates continued to rise in 2021. Homicides in many cities reached levels unseen since the 1990s, when incarceration rates were as low as they are now. The incarceration-versus-violent-crime relationship is statistically complex, but the wholesale release of violent criminals serves as one more contributor to increasing murders in American cities.

This article originally appeared in City Journal. Read the whole thing here.

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