The Sentencing Project releases report titled “Incarceration and Crime: A Weak Relationship”

The Sentencing Project this morning released this new 18-page research brief titled “Incarceration & Crime: A Weak Relationship.” The report assembles a variety of data and research in keeping with the report’s thesis that there is only a weak relationship between incarceration and crime.  Here are a couple of passages from the body of the report:

Scholars examining state imprisonment trends during the period of extreme growth conclude that incarceration contributed only modestly to the crime drop.  They find that in the 1990s mass incarceration accounted for as much as 35% or as little as 6% of the crime drop.  These estimates depend on the type of crime under investigation as well as the methodology and assumptions used by analysts.  Since the turn of the century, mass incarceration appears to have made almost no contribution to the crime drop.  Reviewing the four-decade period when incarceration levels increased without any consistent relationship with crime rates, the National Research Council has concluded that “the increase in incarceration may have caused a decrease in crime, but the magnitude of the reduction is highly uncertain and the results of most studies suggest it was unlikely to have been large.”…

As some lawmakers pivot to widen the reach of the criminal legal system in response to public concern, recent state trends illustrate that less imprisonment often happens alongside improvements to community safety.  Over a nine year period (2013-2022), 46 states reduced the footprint of their prison population while experiencing crime declines.  In some states, these declines were substantial.