Let’s get smarter on crime, not “tougher.”
This time of year, aspiring elected officials insist that we must get tough on crime to keep us safe. “Getting tough” almost always includes imposing more and longer prison sentences. Unfortunately, most of those claims are based on myths, fear, and half-truths. Therefore, voters should insist that calls for increased punishment be replaced by programs that can actually reduce crime, help victims, and increase public safety.
According to widely accepted government statistics, the US imprisons more of its citizens per capita than any other nation. Washington State imprisons people at a rate three times higher than most of the rest of the developed world. Over the past ten years, we have imprisoned more people per capita than at any other time in our history. However, according to the National Academy of Sciences, most studies have concluded that this record-breaking level of incarceration has not made us safer.
We are not safer because the following myths are false or misleading.
Very Long prison sentences deter crime. Untrue. They do not deter the individuals who receive them, and they do not deter others. That makes sense when one recognizes that most crimes, including violent ones, are committed on impulse, by young people, who are not thinking about future consequences. Making the consequences more severe does not change this dynamic.
Lengthy incapacitation is necessary for public safety. Untrue. According to a study published by the National Institute of Justice, even the most crime prone individuals age-out of crime by the age of 40. They simply mature or get tired of the lifestyle. This is true for violent crimes as well as for property crimes. For example, persons released early after serving long sentences committed as juveniles have a miniscule recidivism rate of 2.1%. Notably, regarding the effect of imprisonment on recidivism, the National Academy of Sciences report concluded that the body of credible evidence “consistently points to no effect or to an increase rather than a decrease in recidivism.”
Long sentences are desired by survivors. Untrue. Numerous surveys around the country reveal that long prison sentences are not desired by most victims, even of violent crimes. Nationally known victim advocate Danielle Sered found that most victims tell her they do not desire lengthy prison sentences. Rather they want and need an explanation for the crime, remorse by the person who committed it, rehabilitation, and other assistance such as mental health counseling, medical assistance, and housing.
In addition to the myths above, very long prison sentences are the epitome of wasteful and ineffective government programs. The expense of prisons alone in Washington exceeds one billion dollars per year, not including the cost of county and municipal jails, courts, prosecutors, and public defenders. It is wasteful because it expends limited tax dollars on programs for which there is little to no evidence they work as intended.
A final major problem is that very long prisons sentences are disproportionately imposed on African Americans. According to a 2020 ACLU report by Drs. Katherine Beckett and Heather Evans, professors of sociology at the University of Washington, in 2017, although 3.5% of the state’s population was African American, they comprised 19% of the total prison population and 28% of those serving life sentences. These incredibly long sentences not only negatively affect those serving them but also their families and communities, further perpetuating our country’s tragic history of systemic racism.
Long prison sentences are ineffective, wasteful, and do very little to help survivors heal. Consequently, society would be better served by addressing crime’s root causes, such as early childhood trauma, mental illness, economic insecurity, and violence.
David Trieweiler is a trial attorney with over 30 years of experience both defending and prosecuting persons accused of crimes in the State of WA. He is a member of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (WACDL), and serves as the Chair of WACDL’s End Mass Incarceration Project.
So we should let Gary Ridgway out?
You left out the part where the likelihood of punishment has a much higher measurable deterrent effect than the severity of punishment.
This makes a good case for locking up up repeat violent offenders at least into their 40s. Agree on non-violent ones tho- we need a better idea than prison. As to Ridgeway, he should have been released through a trap door some time ago.
@dvs99
@dvs99 I know, right? How is this guy a lawyer? He says “it’s a myth that long sentences keep the public safe,” but then follows it up by saying “it’s proven that long sentences for juveniles almost eliminate the chance of re-offending when you get out, and for the most crime-prone people, you can just put them in prison time-out until they’re 40 and you’re fine.”
“Consequently, society would be better served by addressing crime’s root causes, such as early childhood trauma, mental illness, economic insecurity, and violence.”
These are intractable issues that have been around as long as there have been humans living together. I’m sorry and I fully recognize that incarcerating someone will not solve their issues but at some point if we find out that someone is incapable of being part of the social contract either by choice or by things out of their control (like mental illness) than for their good and the good of everyone else we need to place them somewhere they can not do further harm. What is left unsaid in this op ed is that if we continue to let these folks out of jail there will be additional victims and the rest of us just need to accept that. That’s a non starter for me. To quote Spock “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one”.
@2 likelihood of being caught, but yes.
@5 way to conspicuously misunderstand that statistic. People RELEASED EARLY, so in other words who did NOT serve the sentence imposed, have a miniscule recidivism rate. Indicating the long sentences imposed were entirely unnecessary and unwarranted.
Bullshit. Long prison sentences aren’t about “survivors healing,” they are about removing the perpetrator from society because they chose to not abide by society’s rules. You break the rules, you sit it out for a while. You break the rules real bad, you sit out for a long time (maybe for the rest of your life).
But sure, argue that Charles Manson should have been let out of prison. Or Ted Bundy. Please… go on with your “restorative justice” b.s.
Prisons have been around for thousands of years… know why? Because there are shitty human beings that don’t want to follow society’s norms. People who will always want to bring harm. And those shitty human beings need to “sit it out” for a while. That will never change. Which means all this restorative justice bullshit is exactly that – performative bullshit.
@8 by all means don’t let having embarrassingly misunderstood the argument deter you from continuing to push your ill-informed and close-minded opinions
The article isn’t specific; what kind of crimes are we talking about? And .. the writer says that the survivors don’t care about it? That’s not true. Fo example, I knew a woman who was brutally abducted and raped, and he was being released back into the community — another state. She was informed about it and terrified. And you know what happened after they released him? He abducted and raped another woman, and the other woman, he also murdered.
@10 He was white.