Mass incarceration under Reagan did not reduce crime but bred ever larger prison populations.

Evidence

In thinking about the possible obsolescence of the prison, we should ask how it is that so many people could end up in prison without major debates regarding the efficacy of incarceration. When the drive to produce more prisons and incar cerate ever larger numbers of people occurred in the 1980s during what is known as the Reagan era, politicians argued that ” tough on crime ” stances—including certain imprisonment and longer sentences—would keep communities free of crime. However, the practice of mass incarceration during that period had little or no effect on official crime rates. In fact, the most obvious pattern was that larger prison populations led not to safer communities, but, rather, to even larger prison populations. Each new prison spawned yet another new prison. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 17

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mass incarceration did not lower crime but bred more prisons

Related

• Prison growth began when crime rates were already falling (similarity 0.85)
• Prisons demonstrably fail to reduce the crime rate (similarity 0.82)
• Prisons function as criminal training centers and a just society would not need them (similarity 0.80)
• Harsher penal measures show no connection to actual crime rates. (similarity 0.79)
• The U.S. prison population grew tenfold in three decades, to two million. (similarity 0.78)
• Mass incarceration stemmed from policy changes, not crime or racial drug differences (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Mass incarceration did not lower crime but bred more prisons #corroborates (1.00)