Soft on crime turns out to be smart on crime.
James Alan Fox and Richard Moran8:00 a.m. EST February 18, 2016
As U.S. repudiates war on drugs, finds innocent men on death row, states recognize 'lock 'em up' policies fail.
A new report from the University of Michigan's National Registry of Exonerations has proclaimed 2015 as a banner year for achieving justice in America. A total of 149 prisoners including 58 convicted of homicide and five on death row were released from custody based on exculpatory evidence or the recognition that theSixth Amendment right to a fair trial had been violated. Apparently, they were the victims of a system more interested in arrest, prosecution and incarceration than in justice.
The shame of wrongful conviction has captured the public's imagination. A ten-part Netflix documentary focusing on the plight of one Steven Avery from an allegedly overzealous prosecution quickly went viral. What's more, the issue of innocence made its way into the Feb. 4 New Hampshire Democratic presidential debate when Sen. Bernie Sanders argued for abolition of the death penalty based on his firm belief that "too many innocent people, including minorities, African Americans, have been executed when they were not guilty."
Many of the hundreds who have been exonerated and released from prison in the past several decades were prosecuted during a period of high crime rates and unprecedented fear. At a time when a no-nonsense, "lock 'em up" criminal justice policy carried the day, the nation largely turned a blind eye to injustices. We were far more intent on ensuring public safety than protecting the rights of the accused. Meanwhile, a booming economy afforded close to a ten-fold expansion in state and federal prison populations.
Times have changed. Crime rates are at a 50-year low, and, in part due to runaway correctional expenditures, a majority of states are struggling to balance their budgets. This dire financial situation has forced politicians to seek out cost-saving measures, and the low crime rate has allowed them to do so without much public opposition.
The focus on innocence and exoneration actually reflects a much broader rethinking of our criminal justice policies in the context of low crime and limited resources.
When crime rates were rising, the cops were handed a mandate to do whatever it took to arrest criminals. Now the police are being held accountable like never before. We are questioning their use of deadly force, and equipping them with body cameras to monitor their every move.
Similarly, the 1990s panic over youth and gang violence had us characterizing juvenile offenders as "superpredators" who were beyond redemption. The popular slogan "adult time for adult crime" echoed a "get-tough" approach for punishing kids. Recently, however, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished mandatory life sentences for minors. And policy makers have recommitted to the original philosophy of juvenile justice, prioritizing the needs of young offenders rather than what punishment is deserved.
The 1990s also saw the rapid spread of a penal policy patterned after a well-known baseball refrain "three strikes and you're out." This metaphorical approach to sentencing felons helped nearly bankrupt many states, especially California where "three strikes" was most enthusiastically adopted.
Thousands upon thousands of Americans were taken prisoner in the "War on Drugs" declared in the early 1970s when crime rates soared. Having surrendered this misguided campaign, the nation is now looking more toward treatment for addicts than punishment, and releasing nonviolent drug offenders from prison.
Many, if not all, of the recent shifts in philosophy reflect the fact that we simply can't afford to keep millions of Americans locked behind bars. Mass incarceration may have contributed marginally to bringing down the crime rate, but it was hardly a cost- effective strategy. Rehabilitation, despite its limitations, is significantly cheaper and far more attractive to cost-conscious lawmakers and their constituents.
For several decades, ever since Richard Nixon won the White House on a "law and order" platform, the predominant response to crime was decidedly punitive. Today's proposed criminal justice reforms from deincarceration to exoneration would have been condemned as soft on crime. Whether they will prove to be smart on crime, as reformers have promised, one thing is for sure: They are frugal, and frugality is definitely in fashion these days.
James Alan Fox, a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors, is the Lipman Professor of Criminology, Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University. Richard Moran is professor of sociology at Mount Holyoke College.