Time Served - The High Cost, Low Returns of Longer Prison Terms - PEW Center on the States
June 2012 - Read the entire 65-page report
Executive Summary
Over the past four decades, criminal justice policy in the United States was guided largely by a central premise: the best way to protect the public was to put more people in prison. A corollary was that offenders should spend longer and longer time behind bars.
The logic of the strategy seemed inescapable - more inmates serving more time surely equals less crime—and policy makers were stunningly effective at putting the approach into action. As the Pew Center on the States has documented, the state prison population spiked more than 700 percent between 1972 and 2011, and in 2008 the combined federal - state local inmate count reached 2.3 million, or one in 100 adults. Annual state spending on corrections now tops $51 billion and prisons account for the vast majority of the cost, even though offenders on parole and probation dramatically outnumber those behind bars.
Indeed, prison expansion has delivered some public safety payoff. Serious crime has been declining for the past two decades, and imprisonment deserves some of the credit. Experts differ on precise figures, but they generally conclude that the increased use of incarceration accounted for one-quarter to one-third of the crime drop in the 1990s. Beyond the crime control benefit, most Americans support long prison terms for serious, chronic, and violent offenders as a means of exacting retribution for reprehensible behavior.
But criminologists and policy makers increasingly agree that we have reached a “tipping point” with incarceration, where additional imprisonment will have little if any effect on crime. Research also has identified new offender supervision strategies and technologies that can help break the cycle of recidivism.
Executive Summary
Over the past four decades, criminal justice policy in the United States was guided largely by a central premise: the best way to protect the public was to put more people in prison. A corollary was that offenders should spend longer and longer time behind bars.
The logic of the strategy seemed inescapable - more inmates serving more time surely equals less crime—and policy makers were stunningly effective at putting the approach into action. As the Pew Center on the States has documented, the state prison population spiked more than 700 percent between 1972 and 2011, and in 2008 the combined federal - state local inmate count reached 2.3 million, or one in 100 adults. Annual state spending on corrections now tops $51 billion and prisons account for the vast majority of the cost, even though offenders on parole and probation dramatically outnumber those behind bars.
Indeed, prison expansion has delivered some public safety payoff. Serious crime has been declining for the past two decades, and imprisonment deserves some of the credit. Experts differ on precise figures, but they generally conclude that the increased use of incarceration accounted for one-quarter to one-third of the crime drop in the 1990s. Beyond the crime control benefit, most Americans support long prison terms for serious, chronic, and violent offenders as a means of exacting retribution for reprehensible behavior.
But criminologists and policy makers increasingly agree that we have reached a “tipping point” with incarceration, where additional imprisonment will have little if any effect on crime. Research also has identified new offender supervision strategies and technologies that can help break the cycle of recidivism.
Across the nation, these developments, combined with tight state budgets, have prompted a significant shift toward alternatives to prison for lower-level offenders. Policy makers in several states have worked across party lines to reform sentencing and release laws, including reducing prison time served by nonviolent offenders. The analysis in this study shows that longer prison terms have been a key driver of prison populations and costs, and the study highlights new
opportunities for state leaders to generate greater public safety with fewer taxpayer dollars.
opportunities for state leaders to generate greater public safety with fewer taxpayer dollars.