Mass incarceration is social engineering.
Author Archive | Mark Kleiman, guest-blogging
How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment: A Checklist
As the last in my series of guest-posts on crime and punishment, here’s a list of fairly specific recommendations. They are designed to simultaneously reduce crime and incarceration, by (1) using prison cells more efficiently; (2) using punishments other than incarceration; and (3) controlling crime by means other than punishment. The detailed justifications can be found […]
Crime and punishment, race and class
Not a melodrama, but a tragedy.
Benefits and costs: crime, crime avoidance, crime control
Most of the costs imposed by crime are the costs of crime avoidance.
Criminal justice efforts are cheap in budgetary terms, but expensive in terms of the loss of liberty and the suffering they impose.
Programs that control crime without inflicting punishment can justify large costs for modest crime reductions.
Positive feedback and strategic enforcement
Dynamic concentration holds the key to having less crime and less punishment.
How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment
We could have half as much crime, and half as many prisoners, a decade from now as we have today.