3 ms·
At least one plausible explanation for this is that crime went down because the criminals were put in jail and this ended their criminal careers (either because
by yummyfajitas 11y ago
At least one plausible explanation for this is that crime went down because the criminals were put in jail and this ended their criminal careers (either because they stayed in jail, or because jail scared them away from crime). Prosecutors and police saw this was successful and continued it, possibly (likely) past the point of optimality.
I don't know exactly how to prove/disprove this, or what data to look for, but it's at least a plausible narrative.
- tptacek 11y agoIt also seems plausible to me that during a decades-long national freakout about crime, we overstaffed prosecutors offices, which then proceeded to find more work for themselves.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoThat is plausible. These two narratives are not even inconsistent with each other. In fact, we might not even have (initially) overstaffed prosecutors offices; we might have had the right # to clean up the 80's, and simply maintained staffing levels when we should have reduced it. (Shrinking leviathon is hard.) Though are you intending to suggest that crime wasn't as big a deal as it was perceived during our "decades-long national freakout"? I haven't investigated this and have no real opinion, I'm just curious.
- tptacek 11y agoCrime is definitely less of a big deal now than it was during the freakout. The money question is, were deliberate criminal justice intervention the reason why crime dropped, or were extrinsic factors (like lead toxicity or family planning services or improved education)? If it's the latter, we need to reevaluate the resources we allocate to the criminal justice system. Maybe: fewer prosecutors, more judges.