Source: Niskanen Center
by Richard Hahn & Clarissa Iliff
“Some people currently behind bars pose little threat to public safety, but that alone will not justify their release unless alternative measures can serve the goals of incapacitation, deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation. Today’s community-corrections system rarely achieves those goals. Because judges and prosecutors are understandably reluctant to see criminals avoid punishment, probation often includes terms that are intentionally onerous. The result is a maze of poorly designed rules, enforced more or less arbitrarily, with scant capacity to redirect clients toward lawful lives or incapacitate them to prevent additional offending. Saddling probationers — most of them poor — with the costs of their own supervision only deepens the damage. The over-use of confinement is therefore unsurprising.” (07/25/25)