Earlier this year I wrote about the relationship between U.S. violent crime and incarceration rates from 1960 to 2014. The Department of Justice has since provided additional data on incarceration rates through 2021. Hence, this post. Let’s start with violent crime rates:
Note how the violent crime rate tripled between 1965 and 1980, and although the violent crime rate has been falling since the mid-1990s, it is still close to double the 1965 rate.
Next, incarceration rates as a percent of violent crime rates 4-6 years* earlier:
Despite the huge increase in violent crime from 1965 to 1980, the incarceration-to-violent crime rate was lower than its 1965 rate until the mid-1980s. The incarceration-to-violent rate really begins to rise in the early 1990s, a few years after a steep rise in the violent crime rate. The incarceration-to-violent crime rate then peaks around 2010.
Here’s a table with the same information:
What I see is under-incarceration during the 1970s, a time when violent crime skyrocketed in the U.S. Then the reaction set in, and incarceration rates began their long steep rise - not falling until almost 20 years past the violent crime peak.
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* The incarceration rate is a few years later than the crime rates, because crime precedes arrests precedes convictions precedes incarceration, and that usually takes years.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate
https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-america
https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend