NCJ Number
141722
Date Published
1993
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article reviews the work of DiIulio, Reynolds, and Methvin concerning the premise that incarceration, while expensive, is less costly than the crime it prevents.
Abstract
DiIulio's crime estimates were produced through a survey of Wisconsin prison inmates. In determining the incapacitation benefits of prison, DiIulio compares incarceration only with the alternative of letting criminals free with no sanction. By ignoring viable alternatives, DiIulio's cost-benefit analysis is fatally flawed, according to this author. Reynolds's premise is that a decrease in "expected punishment" for crime leads directly to an increase in the rate of serious crimes committed. He derives very low estimates of actual prison time served per serious offense using a calculation of expected punishment that includes the probabilities of arrest, conviction, and imprisonment. Methvin, one of the country's most vocal proponents of using incarceration to decrease crime, manipulates statistics to support his contention that crime increases as punishment decreases. This author concludes that such studies are based on ideology rather than science, and ignore the root causes of crime including increasing urbanization, changes in the workplace, improvements in crime reporting, and family disruption. 5 figures, 2 notes, and 11 references