Source: Niskanen Center
by Geg Newburn
“The original X post argues that we can incarcerate our way out of crime because large majorities of those responsible for large fractions of serious crime have at least one prior arrest. The necessary implication is that the lever by which to achieve that goal is to incarcerate every arrestee for as long as it takes to reduce their threat level to zero. If the U.S. adopted this strategy tomorrow, we’d take the 5 million people who will be arrested over the next year and put them all in prison for, say, 15-20 years. In year two, arrest totals would drop …. But every year, new criminals begin their careers, some replacement occurs in drug markets, and a large number of low-rate offenders who escaped arrest in year one get caught in year two. The annual arrest numbers would never drop to zero, but the prison population would grow …” (03/26/26)