A
2017 study by the highly regarded
Vera Institute — supported by the
National Institute of Corrections — finds that incarceration, in short, has no benefits. It DOES NOT make neighborhoods safer, it is NOT a deterrent for crime, and it only causes long term, intergenerational harm. This is not a radical claim. It is a data-backed one.
Primary Source — Vera Institute of Justice, 2017
“The Prison Paradox: More Incarceration Will Not Make Us Safer” — published by the Vera Institute of Justice and supported by the National Institute of Corrections. The brief synthesizes decades of research on the relationship between incarceration rates and crime, documents evidence from 19 states that reduced both incarceration and crime rates simultaneously, and highlights proven, more cost-effective public safety alternatives.
What the Research Actually Shows
On Deterrence
The deterrent effect of incarceration on crime is minimal at best and has been diminishing for years. The research base is consistent and has been replicated across jurisdictions.
On Violent Crime
Increased incarceration rates show no demonstrated effect on violent crime. In some instances, higher incarceration rates may actually increase crime by severing social ties and destabilizing communities.
On Alternatives
Nineteen states have reduced both their incarceration and crime rates — demonstrating that public safety and reduced incarceration are not competing goals. They are compatible ones.
The research shows that locking more people up does not reduce violence, and in some contexts it actually destabilizes communities by severing social ties, increasing economic strain, and deepening cycles of trauma that fuel future harm.
That finding alone should force a reckoning. Because if incarceration doesn’t deter crime, doesn’t improve safety, and actively harms families and communities, then we have to ask a harder question: why does the system keep doubling down on it?
The answer isn’t evidence.
It isn’t public safety.
It’s politics.
What Actually Drives Harm
Policymakers and practitioners — judges, prosecutors, legislators — continue to make decisions that fail their communities by refusing to address the actual drivers of harm:
Poverty
Lack of educational opportunity
Untreated addiction
Unresolved trauma
Housing instability
Economic exclusion
Instead, incarceration becomes a stand-in for solutions we refuse to invest in. The only real gains being made are performative ones — political theater for reelection campaigns — while families absorb the collateral consequences: lost income, housing instability, fractured relationships, and generational damage that no sentence can undo.
Rita’s Analysis
This refusal to change is self-centered and lazy. It reflects a willful disregard for decades of data, a failure to engage with evidence-based policy, and a deeply troubling lack of critical thinking among those entrusted with enormous power over people’s lives.
We know what works. We know incarceration doesn’t. Continuing to rely on it anyway isn’t just ineffective — it’s a deliberate choice.
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Related Coverage — The Evidence Against Mass Incarceration
How to cite: Williams, R. [Rita]. (2024, December 11). Incarceration Doesn’t Make Communities Safer. It Destroys Them. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2024/12/11/incarceration-doesnt-make-communities-safer-it-destroys-them/
