Issues 2020: Mass Decarceration Will Increase Violent Crime

Candidates ignore realities about America’s prison population, recidivism rates

NEW YORK, NY — Many presidential candidates are proposing to release as much as half of the nation’s prison population, on the premise that the U.S. suffers from “mass incarceration” and that most prisoners are behind bars for low-level, non-violent offenses. But according to the latest issue brief in the Manhattan Institute’s Issues 2020 series, that’s simply not the case. Fellow and deputy director of legal policy Rafael Mangual shows that most prisoners are serving time for violent offenses and many who have been convicted of a lesser offense have also committed—or will go on to commit—more serious felonies. Releasing such convicts more quickly, or forgoing their prison time entirely, could drive an increase in violent crime in America’s most underserved neighborhoods.

Fewer than one in five American prisoners is primarily incarcerated for a drug offense—and very few are in for mere possession. In fact, more than half of state and federal prisoners are serving time for violent or weapons-related offenses. Further, their sentences are shorter than the popular narrative suggests: 20 percent of convicted murderers, for example, serve less than five years in prison. Decarcerating these populations unduly would not create conditions of what candidates present as a European-style utopia. Instead, since studies show released prisoners tend to reoffend, it would place undue strains on law enforcement and pose a major threat to public safety.

Other findings include:

• Among state prisoners, 60 percent are serving time for murder, rape, assault, robbery, or burglary—four times the number convicted only of drug offenses.
• Incarceration periods for these prisoners are shorter than the public might imagine: less than 15 percent of state felony convictions result in more than two years served in prison, with incarceration periods for most rapists and sexual offenders clocking in at less than five years.
• Among released state prisoners, 83 percent are arrested for a new offense at least once after their initial release;
• More than one-third of those convicted of violent felonies in large urban counties were either on probation, parole, or out of prison pending the disposition of a prior case when they committed their offense.

Click here to read the full report.

About Issues 2020

The Issues 2020 series applies the Manhattan Institute’s breadth and depth of expertise on major issues of national public policy to the key arguments and proposals of the 2020 presidential campaigns. MI scholars identify where the central claims driving key debates reflect fundamental misunderstandings about what is happening in America. With succinct explanations of what the data show, they provide a much-needed corrective and a solid foundation for political debates about the nation’s future. Click here to read more.