Mass incarceration is failing to prevent crime, reported the Portland Press Herald, The Obama administration is looking in
a few unconventional places for new ideas on public safety.
For example, raising the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour
could prevent as many as half a million crimes annually, according to a new
report from the White House’s Council of Economic (CEA) Advisers, a group of
economists and researchers charged with providing the president with analysis
and advice on economic questions.
Spending an additional $10 billion to expand police forces
could reduce crime by as much as 16 percent, they project, preventing 1.5
million crimes a year.
In the report, the CEA argues for a broader analysis of the
problems of crime and incarceration, touching on subjects that seem unrelated
to criminal justice, such as early childhood education and health care. The
authors of the report contend that by helping people get by legally, those
other elements of the president’s agenda would be more effective in reducing
crime than incarceration.
The authors of the report review research on the costs of
incarceration as well as the benefits in terms of reducing crime. An inmate in
a prison can’t commit a crime on the street, and the risk of being imprisoned
might deter some from breaking the law.
Criminologists have found, however, that criminals aren’t
deterred by the prospect of incarceration if they think they won’t be caught.
The likelihood of being punished is more important to criminals than the
punishment’s severity. And plenty of inmates aren’t habitual criminals.
Imprisoning offenders who aren’t likely to commit more crimes in the future
anyway is an expensive way to keep the public safe.
For these reasons, the authors of the White House’s report
conclude that mass incarceration just isn’t worth the money. Hiring more police
officers or investing in public education would do more to reduce crime and
create greater monetary benefits for society as a whole, they say.
The authors consider a few ways of reducing crime. They
forecast that hiking the federal minimum hourly wage from $7.25 to $12 would
reduce crime by 3 percent to 5 percent, as fewer people would be forced to turn
to illegal activity to make ends meet. By contrast, spending an additional $10
billion on incarceration – a massive increase – would reduce crime by only 1
percent to 4 percent, according to the report.
The most effective way to reduce crime would be to spend
more money on policing, the report projects. Research consistently shows that
departments with more manpower and technology do a better job of protecting the
public, and the United States has 35 percent fewer officers relative to the
population than do other countries on average.
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