My friend Joe Domanick is part of a new online criminal justice journal called The Crime Report.” It should be an every day destination for anyone who is interested in the many-faceted world of criminal justice.
This week Joe has a two-part story about the drop in crime in America-–and about what has, and what has not, caused it.
In Part I he looks at the role of smart policing and at the change in gang culture in California, including the tighter grip that the prison gangs have on the gangs in the street.
In Part II he talks to an A-list lineup of experts who nearly to a person agree that the one strategy that cannot be credited with the crime drop, is the ramping up of incarceration.
Here’s how the story begins:
During the 1990s, the favorite solution to reducing crime was incarceration. That is, mass incarceration: mandatory minimums and 25-to-life three-strikes sentences for stealing a slice of pizza. The consequence today is more than two million people behind bars, the world’s largest per capita incarceration rate. No one among the experts I spoke with, however, suggested that as a factor in 2009’s crime drop.
Quite the opposite.
“The dramatic increases in incarceration did contribute to the crime decline in the 1990s,” says Richard Rosenfeld, of the University of St. Louis-Missouri. “The bulk of the evidence shows that. But from 2000-2009, the rate of incarceration slowed. In New York, for example, it’s flat or in decline. So the current decline can’t be ascribed to incarceration.”John Jay Professor David Kennedy agrees. Recent incarceration rates have been marginal,” he says, while decreases in crime have been dramatic; so any new increases “are likely to be grabbing low level [criminals]. Anything going on is taking place at the margins in terms of incarceration, and is not very powerful.”
Carnegie Mellon University Prof. Al Blumstein also dismiss incarceration as a factor. “We’re close to equilibrium in terms of changes in incarceration,” he says. On the average, the inflow is roughly equal to the outflow. We’re way down to less than one percent increase [in imprisonment], whereas for most of the ’80 and ‘90s the rate was going up by 6 to 8 percent a year.”
Meanwhile, Todd Clear, a noted criminologist from John Jay College, points to mass incarceration’s corollary: lengthy prison sentences. “The length of stay in prison in England and hasn’t changed that much and England’s violent crime rate has gone down very similarly to that of U.S; same with Canada,” he says. “The increasing length of prison stay in the US has been a pattern for about 20 years, so I’m not persuaded that that’s a big cause of the current decline.”
Jesus Cristo when do you sleep Celeste?
Some sociologist “experts” will tell you that in a down economy the crime rate increases. That doesn’t seem to be the case. Every economist agrees that the economy is down. The criminologists you referenced all state that incarceration levels are also down. What’s going on? Is it possible that these sociologists could be wrong? The numbers would indicate they are.
I be back when I can use the words draconain and prison industrial complex. Oh wait I might just toss in the word vitriol as well.
…the favorite solution to reducing crime was incarceration. …No one among the experts I spoke with, however, suggested that as a factor in 2009’s crime drop.
I see. It used to work but doesn’t any more. How strange, it used to be that you could take criminals off the streets and they couldn’t commit more crimes. But, now, you take criminals off the streets and they still commit crimes. How is that?
Should I just take the words of liberal sources, aka an “A-list lineup,” or use a little common sense? I think I know what the A stands for in A-list.
Woody, you’re an adult, you don’t need to come up with lame excuses for being lazy. If you’re not going to do the reading, we ask that you keep your hand down.
What did I miss, Mavis? I read the post, but I admit to not having on rose-colored glasses.
Where is Sure Fire, is he at the bar?
A lot of interesting stuff – especially Condi-Rice’s assertion that a lot of the LA street gangs are big into cyber crime! Who knew?
Certainly those that say there is no silver bullet but a combination of improved policing strategies appeal to my sense that the world is complicated, but they should have mentioned that there is one possible thing that some believe could explain the uniform decrease in crime: lead paint! I have trouble with the lead paint theory (just because it’s hard to believe, not because I have any special knowledge), but it probably deserved a mention in the article.
They didn’t mention the “legal abortion=lower crime rates theory” either. I have no idea if that’s crazy or not, but I’d like to see some commentary.
Always nice to see experts admitting to not having much of a clue. That’s expertise I can believe in. (Actually, I’m not kidding. Too often “experts” are so invested in the notion of their expertise that they don’t want to come up dry.)
I will say this on the incarceration thing. I’m generally not a great fan of stuff like three strikes that assumes longer, harder incarceration is a magic bullet and actually solves the problem of crime. But I’m very nervous at the idea of cutting back on incarceration as a simple budget measure, without putting re-entry programs in place that are very unlikely to be on the agenda in the midst of a budget crisis. It seems in CA we might be going from one bad idea – over-incarcerating – to another – dumping prisoners on the street – without any plan, rhyme or reason other than empty pockets. Especially bad idea during a terrible economy and lingering hyper-unemployment.
Reincarnation gives criminals more chances to commit crimes.
So let me get this straight. In the 1990’s higher incarceration levels were a leading cause for crime reductions but not in this past decade, or last year where the drop might be an anomaly?
When I read near the end of part two the possible reasons that crime has reduced at the levels it has for almost two decades, and longer incarceration of so many of our most violent and repeat offenders isn’t even mentioned than this synopsis falls flat on it’s face as just another, although somewhat more coherent, bit of nonsense that refuses to give more credit to where it’s due.
The 3 Strikes website’s numbers don’t lie, yet some people avoid giving the law credit because of their own built up biases about putting people in prison. Rice is spot on about the changing role of gangs, there’s much more that these idiots are involved in she didn’t mention but her Gang Academy rap is a bit off base, has it even got going yet?
So I guess all the liberals here would be on board with a Stop and Frisk program seeing how well it’s worked for so long in N.Y.
One data point remains unchanged (static incarceration rates) but another changes (decline in crime rates). Thus there’s no basis for linking the change to something that’s remained unchanged in the same period. How hard is that to understand ?
Joe D has an obvious bias against cops, bottom line. He must have gotten out of hand in Queens and one of NY’s Finest must have made him eat his hat or something.
Why has crime risen in the likes of DC, Detroit and New Orleans?
How does reincarceration give criminals more chances to commit crimes? I don’t follow the logic there.
I think if crime is reduced to a certain point years after the inception of a crime reduction program, and 3 Strikes was that, at some point the incarceration rate should remain pretty much static. It’s not going to fall forever, at some point it will most likely climb upward but probably not lower to any meaninful degree. These decreases did seem to start when 3 Strikes laws started being implemented in many states so they should later be disgarded as a factor in static incarceration levels?
Or do people believe people never learn? I think you can point to a program that puts you away for life as the motivation for a declining crime rate that wasn’t seen prior to it’s inception.
Surefire – you may be right. I’m not saying your opinon is insane. Frankly I don’t know. I don’t pretend to any expertise on this, although I obviously have my biases and would argue for more complexity in one’s conclusions. But from the perspective of someone analysing trends, if over a decade one data point changes and another one doesn’t, it’s not credible simply to make a correlation because that’s…uh…one’s own particular bias.
I found Rice’s comments interesting in that these nuevo gangs seem to be following the path of the Sicilian immigrants – i.e upscaling and professionalizing dumb-ass, “affinity group” street gangs into more sophisticated and lucrative endeavors. America is a great country.
We threw a lot of folks in prison and the crime rate dropped. Now the incarceration rate has leveled off, and the crime rate dropped. The latter lack of correlation doesn’t invalidate the causation related to the former correlation.
Obviously, as the level of incarceration rises, it’s *marginal* effectiveness goes down. For example, if we magically manage to incarcerate all the criminals, the crime rate goes to zero. Incarcerate a few more people, and the crime rate stays at zero. It doesn’t mean that incarcerating all the criminals was wrong.
I just noticed that one of the “experts” said that the violent crime rate in Britain was dropping like that in the US. That might be true for the last few months, but overall, it is soaring.
Daily Mail:”Recent statistics show that, while overall crime in Britain is falling, violence, particularly street robbery, is rising sharply.”
Where do they dig up these “experts?”
OTOH, since the article is about only a 1 year drop in rates, the idea of associating that drop with any incarceration policy is just silly. 1 year does not a trend make.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-25671/Violent-crime-worse-Britain-US.html#ixzz0ej8ZDkk8
Joe Says: How does reincarnation give criminals more chances to commit crimes? I don’t follow the logic there.
Don’t you see? Liberals say that anything which led to less crime in the past but currently has no affect on crime can only trend to more crime in the future.
Therefore, it’s clear that reincarnation will give criminals opportunities for new crime lives.
Reincarnation is making a comeback Joe!
Reincarnation may or may not be true, but some people should never have been carnated in the first place.
Reincarnation?
This sh*t has been happening over and over again. Recycling souls to preserve the ectoplasmic balance. Alcohol is the answer
I forgot to put the period after the answer.
Alcohol is still the answer.
John Moore writes
Obviously, as the level of incarceration rises, it’s *marginal* effectiveness goes down. For example, if we magically manage to incarcerate all the criminals, the crime rate goes to zero. Incarcerate a few more people, and the crime rate stays at zero. It doesn’t mean that incarcerating all the criminals was wrong.
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What is wring with John? This type of logic is wrong !!!!!!
Everybody knows poetry and hugs is needed to reduce crime, especially among repeat violent offenders.
Please, Hug a Thug today.
We need more laws! If we had more laws concerning gun ownership, then criminals would have to obey them and would not have guns. Then they could only use samurai swords, in which case we would need more laws for those.
“since the article is about only a 1 year drop in rates”
They actually were referencing a 19-year drop in crime rates, although they also referred specifically to 2009 in another part of the article. I don’t think this is about one year, although two graphs spanning the nineties and the aughts would have been useful to clarify for readers how these two factors track over the decades.
“We need more laws! If we had more laws concerning gun ownership, then criminals would have to obey them and would not have guns.”
Considering you’re also the person who is a proponent of outlawing alcohol consumption, this is rather funny.
Interesting link…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/nyregion/07crime.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Scott, I have too many friends who are members of AA (not because they have to put up with me.) Alcoholism is a terrible addiction that destroys lives and families and which has effects that carry over for generations. Anything to reduce its use makes sense…as long as it doesn’t infringe on Constitutional rights.
Reg, That is indeed an interesting link.
Hmmmm. Needless to say we’d like to see some dates attached to those reports of captains et al, being asked to tweak the numbers. I heard of that going on with—let’s just say a chief who predated Bill Bratton. Where captains were leaned on to reclassify certain crimes to make them better match the stat needs of the moment. But it was tough to prove.
This will be interesting to track as I suspect it will not go away.
Forget about re-classify crimes, what about not even taking a report.
If you’ve ever had a window broken or something stolen from your car in Los Angeles, the LAPD won’t even come out to take a report. If you have a property crime in L.A., the LAPD won’t even come out to take a report.
I
Celeste, you should always be suspicious about statistics that are kept by people who have an interest in their results. Scorekeepers should be competent and independent.
Isn’t what is claimed by these retired officers from N.Y. what California wants to do now to avoid sending people to prison? Isn’t raising the amount of what now constitutes a grand theft mean that you’ll see a reduction in grand thefts (along with other felonies that will now be misdemeanors like GTA) but a rise in petty thefts?
Does this change the crime? The loss to the victim will still feel like it deserves more punishment than the slap on the wrist that the state wants the couts to now give thieves, all so we can cut loose people who pretty much steal and get high for a living. Oh and lets not forget, no parole supervision.
A rose by any other name.
WTF,
LAPD has never taken reports at the SCENE of the crime for misd. crimes such as vandalism, petty theft or etc.
They take those over the phone or at the front desk of the police station.
Vehicle theft reports are also taken over the phone.
FYI.
So SF believes that “California” is proposing more fraudulent police reports to “cut” crime ? I missed that. Where is that proposal coming from ?
Note: any public proposal to change the statutory “value” of a felony vs. a misdemeanor theft is NOT the same thing as individuals switching numbers under the table with no accountability.
Note: any public proposal to change the statutory “value†of a felony vs. a misdemeanor theft is NOT the same thing as individuals switching numbers under the table with no accountability.
What reg said.
One is a policy change with which one might or might not agree. The other is falsifying the numbers. Let’s not confuse the two.
I really don’t understand the huge complaint with nonrevocable parole. We were the last state in the union (or nearly the last) to put all of those released from prison on parole. And it hasn’t worked for us.
Do we really believe that all the other states were simply idiotic not to adopt our nonfunctional system? There is zero research or real world example that suggests that our system is better than the one we are belatedly adapting.
Our high control parolees don’t receive enough supervision, and our low level parolees churn in and out of prison for actions that are not, on the face of them, illegal—were it not for the fact that these folks were on parole. If that churning through the revolving door had the effect of improving their ability to function productively in the community when they get out 10 months or whatever later, I’d be all for it. But it does precisely the opposite.
So why in the world wouldn’t we institute a system where we better supervise the high control people? As for the others, if we can’t help them with reentry (which would be optimum if the state wasn’t broke), then at least let’s not repeatedly get in their way.
I’m quite sure you know the answer to the last paragraph in your comment, Celeste. You’ve mentioned the Correctional Officer’s Union as many times as anyone else. Their influence coupled with easily swayed, greedy politicians can only lead to more ineffective parole regs and more over-budget Bastilles built in your fair State. It’s similar to the abhorrant theory that “wars are good for an economy”. Bunk!
By the way, SF, I did finally (very belatedly) check on that question you asked. The answer is: Guys are still being violated as recently as late 2009 for being in the wrong neighborhood to visit their mothers or girlfriends, with no additional aggravating circumstances.
By the way, my personal favorite crazy parole violation story (which in the end turned out okay) in the last few years is when this former gang member/parolee with the nickname of Spider was working at Homeboy industries and was doing really, really well—and had been for some years.
In fact, when Laura Bush, then the First Lady, came to Homeboy a few years back, Spider was one of the guys she met and she remembered him and liked him in particular.
So when, a year or so later, she invited Father Greg to the White House for a big youth related event (I can’t remember exactly what is was), she suggested he bring with him three or four homeboys. Spider was one of those invited.
He was overjoyed. He would get to meet the President of the United States! Father Greg agreed to front him the necessary money to buy a suit for the occasion.
One problem. Spider was still on parole and couldn’t leave the state. Spider dutifully met with his P.O. and told him (with much pride) of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and asked for permission to go.
The P.O. said No. Absolutely not.
Figuring this had to be a misunderstanding, and hoping to clear things up, Father Greg contacted the P.O. and explained the nature of the trip, the fact that he Greg would be with the guys at all times, and detailed how well Spider had been doing in his life over the last several years—working, staying out of any kind of trouble, being a father to his kids, an inspiration to others, getting his gang tattoos removed, doing everything right, with not a hitch.
Surely there must be some way that Spider could be allowed fly to D.C. for the four days that the trip would take to meet the President of the United States, at the first lady’s request?
The answer remained no.
Father Greg doesn’t usually get into issues of parole. But in this one instance he went above the P.O.’s head, and explained the circumstances to the P.O’s supervisor (or the supervisor’s supervisor. I don’t quite remember.) The NO turned into a YES, and Spider had a life-changing experience.
Too often, however, I hear the cases where the guy is offered a safe job and a place to live in Riverside (or where ever) by his brother in law, or is asked to do a two-week job training outside of LA as part of a city program or…. there are a zillion examples I know of personally.
And the P.O. won’t make the exception. And so the parolee either takes the chance, hoping he won’t get caught, or loses the job opportunity and tries to make do in a situation where jobs are scarce.
I really don’t think this happens because the P.O.’s are bad guys, they’re simply overwhelmed with their caseloads and can’t afford the time to check out if this is a good exception to make or not. So NO is the default position.
I hope this new system produces better results.
I’d agree Reg but it still stinks.
Go Colts.
Sometimes I wonder what planet you’re on Celeste or if you’re as naive as you come off as. Your parole rant is ridiculous. In your world if gangster A gets out of prison it would seem you’d be ok with him hanging out with his homies gangsters b through Z because it wouldn’t be illegal otherwise. I’m sure that will help him stay on the straight and narrow.
People should just forget these were his crime partners and influences that might have put him in the joint in the first place, let’s just see if he acts differently this time, and the time after that, and the time after that as the cycle continues, and it will.
On the one hand you look at our system as a failure but why, because people get sent back for minor violations when they know full well that the only reason their out and not doing time is because they’ve agreed to be held more accountable than Joe Citizen whose actually behaved. As a high level aide to Obama would say, are they “fucking retarded”?
Whose supposed to be responsible for the behavior of parolees so they “function productively in the community”? What responsibility are you putting on these people, what part of the conditions they agree to that allows them to leave prison early do you think they don’t understand?
Is there going to be anytime where you put the responsibility of behaving when they get out on the offender and not gripe about how it doesn’t work so toss it? It would work if these idiots would simply wake up and act like the vast majority of the public buy I think in your view that’s asking a little too much.
Abolish parole, make every person do their full term, when re-arrested do the same and maybe some of these life long gangsters, thieves, thugs and other miscreants and scum will get the hint. No good time credits while in and any bad prison behavior adds time to their sentence, instead of begging them to be nice makes sense to me. They sure won’t change with the rules not mattering any more and people giving a wink and a nod to their continued criminal activity no matter how minor it is.
For every Spider there’s a guy like Shy Boy that I dealt with that didn’t take advantage of being on parole for even 24 hrs before he killed his ex-girlfriend and her new squeeze, a nice guy with a job.
I’m not blind to the fact that there are exceptions to the rule but my experience with parolees has rarely been because they’ve been behaving. I don’t know how people could get violated for being in the wrong neighborhood unless that neighborhood wasn’t friendly to him. No way could i get someone violated for that even in 2002, not with P.O.’s I ever ran into.
“Guys are still being violated as recently as late 2009 for being in the wrong neighborhood to visit their mothers or girlfriends.”
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Celeste forgot to mention the gangsters visting their sick grandmothers, we all know gangsters often visit their sick grandmothers.
SF, the classic example would be a guy who grew up on Ramona Gardens but is forbidden to go there because his background is Big Hazard, even though his whole family still lives there.
The idea is that he shouldn’t be hanging out where his gang claims its neighborhood, which certainly has a logic to it. And to succeed, frankly, a former gang member needs to move away from the ‘hood. But to make never going there at all a condition of parole, rarely turns out to be practical.
These are the cases I’m talking about.
And WTF, that’s just dumb.
Domanick is oversimplfying the many factors that play into the increase or decrease in crime. Sentencing policies, even unfair and inhumane ones, which lead to our skyrocketing prison populations, certainly are part of the complicated equations. My advice to all is to take a deep breath, forget your liberal or conservative biases, and bookmark one of the best sites with a national perspective on the issue. http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=92. You might surprise yourself and learn a thing or two that wouldn’t ordinarily slip through your narrow filter of reality.
Very good link, Logic Police. Thank you. The Sentencing Project does a great job.
“my experience with parolees has rarely been because they’ve been behaving.”
Well…duh!!! Which is why I’m wondering whether your experience is the most rational basis for generalizing. As I said above, I’m not comfortable with the notion of dumping prisoners on the street because we can’t afford incarceration. I’d like public policy re: parole to be generated based on a full range of experts, experiences and some sort of strategy from integration. Without a strategy for integration and employment, we might as well keep these guys chained in a pit.
“for” not “from”
My experience is a rational basis for how I feel. When you constantly get calls on subjects causing problems who turn out to be parolees creating and if they weren’t drawing attention to themselves in some manner in the first place when an officer was around maybe i’d feel different.
With the recidivism rate as high as it is what would change my mind about parolees in general? It’s not like there wasn’t tons of these guys taking part in new crimes to go around or you’d read about day after day in the paper.
How do we integrate career criminals, and I rarely see that term here but it’s what were talking about, into this type of job market? We;ve pretty much turned into a bunch of cowards when it comes to doing the right thing in all types of areas. Now many feel it’s better to do the thing that makes people feel good about how they treated someone else, even if that someone has an established track record that says I can’t be trusted.
It’s a recipe for more problems down the road.
Of course your experience is a rational basis for how you feel. But how you feel isn’t necessarily a rational basis for public policy.
One thing I would think you’d agree on is the need for programs that track parolees back into society with more oversight and incentives in terms of education and employment. Personally, I wouldn’t put parolees directly back on the street but would make some sort of half-way house, training and successful work experience mandatory (at least in the case of guys with serious records.) That seems to me to be a better approach to the problem of recidivism than relying solely on longer incarceration. My guess is that after a long incarceration many of these guys aren’t fit for much of anything other than going back to prison if left to their own devices.
I’d agree with the programs Reg but with funding cuts everywhere how’s that going to be possible in the near future? In a pefect world there would be money for job training, drug programs, family counselling and all kinds of other goodies to make re-entry into the community viable for those who demonstrate they deserve another chance.
In that same perfect world we’d have the balls enough to execute those who so richly deserve it and lock those down forever who have shown time after time, in and out of custody settings, they will never become productive and always act out in a manner that injures society.