Summary
"This report isolates two criminal justice policies — incarceration and one policing approach — and
provides new findings on their effects on crime reduction using a regression analysis. To fully isolate
the effects of these two policies on crime reduction, this report also examines 12 additional commonly
cited theories about what caused the crime decline. Effects are also separated out by decade: 1990-
1999 (“the 1990s”) and 2000-2013 (“the 2000s”). This distinction helps expose the nuanced effects of
variables given the different demographic, economic, and policy trends in each decade.
This report issues three central findings:
increased incarceration at today’s levels has a negligible crime control benefit;
one policing approach that helps police gather data used to identify crime patterns and
target resources, a technique called CompStat, played a role in bringing down crime in
cities;
certain social, economic, and environmental factors also played a role in the crime drop."--Pages 3-4.
Contents
Summary of methodology -- I. State-level analysis of crime -- A. Criminal justice policies -- 1. Increased incarceration -- 2. Increased police numbers -- 3. Use of death penalty -- 4. Enactment of right-to-carry gun laws -- B. Economic factors -- 5. Unemployment -- 6. Growth in income -- 7. Inflation -- 8. Consumer confidence -- C. Social and environmental factors -- 9. Decreased alcohol consumption -- 10. Aging population -- 11. Decreased crack use -- 12. Legalization of abortion -- 13. Decreased lead in gasoline -- II. City-level analysis of crime -- A. Policing -- 1. Introduction of CompStat -- Conclusion -- Appendix A. State graphs on incarceration & crime -- Appendix B. Epanded methodology, data sources & results tables.