Check it out:
A Few Observations:
The states with the highest percent of offenders under community supervision (on probation or parole) were Massachusetts and Illinois. These states also had the lowest crime rates of the five states. I’m not sure if this is merely an accidental correlation or if something causal is going on. For example, maybe the probation and parole programs in these states are really effective at preventing recidivism, resulting in lower crime rates overall. Or maybe there’s something about the residents that make them less likely to commit crimes and more likely to qualify for community supervision. Or maybe some outside factor is responsible for both the high community supervision numbers and relatively low crime rates. Bottom line: more research is needed.
The FBI’s crime rates are based on incident reports, whereas people in these states’ Criminal Legal System have been convicted of crimes. What I’d like to see is how much reported incident rates diverge from conviction rates, and why they diverge, e.g., low arrest/clearance rates, plea deals, diversion programs, prosecutorial discretion/approach to criminal justice, overzealous police over-arresting without sufficient evidence, etc. I imagine the prevalence of these various factors vary according to state, jurisdiction and local politics.
There are relatively few youth involved in the criminal legal system in North Carolina and Massachusetts, controlling for state population size - especially compared to California. What’s up with that? Fewer youth involved in crime, police less likely to arrest minors, greater use of diversion programs?
I can’t stress enough that this is an exploratory exercise. I’m looking for patterns.
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Next: Crime and Punishment in Three Red States.
Links:
https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend