Decisions of the Criminal Justice System

Over the past 20 years, the United States has experienced a massive increase in imprisonment. The number of people incarcerated and the clustering of that incarceration in the inner-city black population raise the prospect that incarceration may be undermining less coercive institutions of social control such as families or communities. The long-term result of this incarceration policy, then, would be increases, rather than the expected decreases, in crime. There is some empirical evidence to support this position. Increases in incarceration have been clustered in groups and places and have been of the magnitude that could affect less coercive institutions in those areas. Large proportions of the imprisoned population are involved in families and communities at the time of their imprisonment. Incarceration has been shown to reduce family formation for blacks but not for whites. Research to date, however, has not demonstrated that increasing incarceration has led to more crime in the long run or that the apparent effects of incarceration on other institutions are not due to other factors. If research ultimately establishes that these allegations are true, then future increases in incarceration must be considered in light of their likely long-term effects on these institutions and not just their immediate effect on crime rates. POLICIES, PROCESSES, AND DECISIONS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM