Is there any correlation between incarceration rates and crime rates?
CHRISTOPHER JENCKS: There’s definitely a correlation between crime rates and incarceration rates. I think the big question is what, why there would be a correlation – that is, if we incarcerate criminals and crime rates have gone up, you would expect incarceration rates to go up. If incarcerating people keeps them from committing new crimes, then incarcerating lots of people should make these things go down. Historically, the correlation is pretty weak. The thing you see over time is that incarceration has gone up a lot since the 1960s. It’s gone up fairly steadily. Crime rates went up in the late ’60s. There were comparatively flat until around 1980. They came down in the early ’80s. They went back up again in the last ’80s. They came down in the ’90s. During all that period, up or down, incarceration was pretty much going up. So, at least for the last 25, probably 30 years, there hasn’t been a strong relationship. We’ve been just filling up the prisons. QUESTION: Could you talk a lit
