Soccer Dad

More prisons, less crime

Don Surber notes the continuing legacy of Jimmy Carter:

Ah, that Jimmy Carter legacy continues, doesn't it?

But it shows how long a shadow a poor choice for president can last.

In this case, federal circuit judges Stephen Reinhardt, Lawrence Karlton, and Thelton Henderson - Carter appointees all -- ordered the state of California to drop its prison population from 150,000 felons down to 110,000 felons in the next 2 years.

Related: Jeff Jacoby takes issue with the Sentencing Project:

In its very first paragraph, "No Exit'' asserts that the high incarceration rate is the result of "three decades of 'tough on crime' policies that have made little impact on crime.''

America's prison population has unquestionably grown in recent years, as prison sentences have lengthened and more criminals have been locked up. But far from negligible, the "impact on crime'' has been dramatic. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Americans experienced 44 million crimes in 1973. By 2007, that number had dropped to 23 million - and this even as the population grew by more than 75 million.

During those "three decades of 'tough on crime' policies,'' in other words, crime in America was nearly halved. Since the mid-1990s, the plunge in violent crime has been especially steep: from more than 51 crimes of violence per 1,000 US residents in 1994 to 21 in 2005 - a 59 percent reduction.

I think that Jacoby answers my rhetorical question from last week.