DEBATENATE

Topics / Crime

The challenge

“Tough-on-crime policies don't work”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

Yes, they do, and the record isn't close. FBI data show the violent crime rate fell by roughly half from its early nineties peak to the late twenty tens. Those are the same years this country hired more police and put serious offenders in prison. Economist Steven Levitt went looking for why crime fell and counted more police and more prisoners among the main reasons. It's not complicated. A man in a cell isn't carjacking anybody. You'll say long sentences hit diminishing returns. For the low-level guy, sure, and that's why President Trump signed the First Step Act. For the violent repeat offender, every year inside is a year your neighborhood gets back. Let me ask you this. If enforcement doesn't work, why do the most dangerous neighborhoods keep asking for more of it? Tough and smart beats soft and sorry.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. The great crime decline came alongside more police and more prison time for serious offenders. That's hard to square with the claim that enforcement fails.

    FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data show the national violent crime rate fell by roughly half between its early 1990s peak and the late 2010s.

  2. Serious research gives enforcement real credit. Police deter crime, and prison takes repeat offenders out of play.

    Steven Levitt's 2004 Journal of Economic Perspectives article, Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s, identified increased police and a rising prison population among the key factors.

  3. Tough and smart go together. Hammer violent crime and trim the sentences that don't make anybody safer.

    President Trump signed the bipartisan First Step Act in December 2018, which expanded rehabilitation programs and adjusted some federal sentencing rules.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: Crime fell in states and countries that didn't increase incarceration much, so the decline had other causes, and mass incarceration has sharply diminishing returns.

Nate: Crime fell for more than one reason. But diminishing returns means the last low-level offender adds little safety. It doesn't mean the violent repeat offender adds none. Aim the toughness at the violent few, and it works.

The lines

Sources

  1. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Crime in the United States (2020)
  2. Steven D. Levitt, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not (2004)
  3. U.S. Congress, First Step Act of 2018 (2018)

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