Vera Institute of Justice released the following to the press:
Although crime is up in many American cities, lawmakers should think twice before raising penalties and extending prison sentences, advises a study released today by the Vera Institute of Justice, a 45-year-old nonprofit organization that works on safety and justice issues and is headed by Michael Jacobson, who ran New York City’s jails and probation system for Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
“Thirty years ago, prevailing wisdom was that sending people to prison was the best and only response to rising crime,” says Stemen. “But crime is a complex phenomenon, influenced by many factors. Incarceration is just one potential influence, and research shows that increasing incarceration isn’t the best or only way to reduce crime.”
Instead, Stemen’s research review suggests that policymakers consider investing in areas such as policing or education, which show equal or better correlation with lower rates of crime.
Government investment in things such as more police, reducing unemployment, or raising education levels may be more cost effective in reducing crime. One national study found, for example, that a 10 percent increase in wages corresponded with a 2 percent drop in property crime and a 25 percent drop in violent crime.
“Removing violent repeat offenders from society obviously makes sense,” concludes David Keene, “but the idea of jailing virtually everyone who breaks our laws and throwing them into institutions that are little more than warehouse lock-ups quickly reaches the point of diminishing returns.”
The above findings make sense to me. Rehabilitation rarely works, but most jails and prisons do not even try to rehabilitate the criminals. As a result, jails and prisons simply become a warehouse for criminals. If anything, this just makes the criminals more dangerous, because they associate with other criminals and fail to learn how to participate legally and peacefully within society.
I believe that society can more effectively reduce violent crime by preventing it before it happens, with such methods as education, security, and poverty reduction.
Of course, I still want anyone who offensively hurts or victimizes anyone else locked up and kept in jail until they no longer pose a threat. If we cannot rehabilitate the victimizer, then keep him in jail for the rest of his life.
Unfortunately, our current incarceration system fails to do that. Instead, it releases victimizers who hurt us – often to make room for non-violent drug offenders who hurt nobody but arguably themselves.
What do you think?
Wednesday, January 31st 2007 at 5:20 pm
I feel that, rehabilitation could work… especially if it was gone about in a more ‘complete’ way… but prevention is definitely more economically feasible…
so while we spend all this money on prisons, that we take away from schools, we end up digging a deeper ditch.
People go into jail as non-violent drug offenders, and then, depending on where they are, they’ll have to join a gang or get killed… and then the system does what it does best, and turn people who were inherently peaceful into violent offenders (just to survive).