New study: Mass incarceration not helping reduce crime, Congress stalled on reform

As lawmakers continue to push criminal justice reform, a new study claims the of role mass incarceration in the drastic drop in crime in the U.S. over the last two decades has not been the cause.

“Incarceration is not effective at crime control – so we need to be doing something else,” says Inimai Chettiar,​ director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program​, which released its report “What Caused the Crime Decline?”​ on Thursday.

“All of these policies were enacted because people believed that they were going to bring down crime,” she says, referring to policies that have contributed to the U.S.’s ballooning prison population, such as mandatory minimums in sentencing and certain drug laws. “But they didn’t actually bring down crime.”

Mass incarceration is not helping the crime in America, says a new study photo donkeyhotey

According to the report, while ​incarceration played a small role – approximately 5 percent (though maybe somewhere between 0-10 percent) ​ – in the drop of crime between 1990-1999, it had nearly no effect (0-1 percent) on crime between 2000-2013. Since 1991, violence crime has been cut by more than half, and property crime shrunk by 43 percent, while imprisonment increased by 61 percent.