From Brookings:
While America’s justice system burns through $80 billion annually on incarceration, many think tanks and policy advocates remain stubbornly focused on reentry programs as their primary reform solution. This focus on post-prison reentry programs overlooks the critical structural problems earlier in the system. Due to racial disparities in the justice system, African Americans and Hispanics are incarcerated at significantly higher rates than white Americans. If these racial groups were incarcerated at the same rate as white Americans, our nation’s prison and jail populations would decrease by nearly 40%. The First Step Act‘s federal sentencing reforms, while important, barely scratch the surface of these systemic inequities. By the time someone walks through those prison gates, they have already missed out on dozens of opportunities for more effective, less costly interventions. The greater opportunity lies in rewinding the process entirely—focusing on diversion programs and front-end reforms that prevent people from ever entering prison walls in the first place.
This tunnel vision on reentry programs reflects the lingering shadow of tough-on-crime politics that dominated the criminal justice landscape for decades. That era’s political doctrine—championed by figures like George Wallace and Richard Nixon, amplified during Reagan’s presidency, and perpetuated through the 1994 crime bill under Bill Clinton—treated harsh punishment and mass incarceration as the key answers to crime. While many tough-on-crime advocates have softened their rhetoric, this punitive legacy still shapes their reform agenda, leading them to resist addressing the front-end practices that feed an unnecessarily draconian system.
Research consistently shows that imprisonment, by itself, is a weak deterrent, with higher incarceration rates having little impact on reducing crime. More alarmingly, states and neighborhoods with concentrated incarceration actually experience increased crime rates. The National Institute of Justice has found that the certainty of being caught, not severity of punishment, is what deters crime. Inside the prisons themselves, overcrowded, unsanitary, and dangerous conditions undermine any chance of rehabilitation, with facilities failing to provide effective treatment, employment training, or educational opportunities. This reality exposes the fundamental flaw in assuming prisons serve as rehabilitative institutions. Continue reading >>>
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