Research Shows Prisons Ineffective in Reducing Crime

NEW YORK, Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- 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.

FBI reports of a 3.7 percent nationwide increase in violent crime in the first half of 2006 -- the largest annual increase in 15 years -- may soon have lawmakers calling for tougher measures to protect public safety. However, after surveying the most recent research on the effectiveness of increasing incarceration to reduce crime, Don Stemen, director of research in Vera's Center on Sentencing and Corrections, argues in Reconsidering
Incarceration: New Directions for Reducing Crime that putting more people in prison may not be the most effective solution.

"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...

Highlights of the report include:

* Over the past 35 years a 10 percent higher incarceration rate was
associated with a 2 to 4 percent lower crime rate, according to the most
reliable research.

* Ever greater rates of incarceration have been subject to diminishing
returns in effectiveness. In some neighborhoods with already high rates
of incarceration, additional increases have correlated with even more
crime than before.

* 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 12 percent drop in property crime
and a 25 percent drop in violent crime.

Read Reconsidering Incarceration