"In America, mass incarceration has caused more crime than it’s prevented"
Allison Schrager:
If long prison sentences was truly a deterrent, juveniles would stop committing crimes when they turn 18 and face the possibility of more jail time. But they don’t. There are several reasons why: First, criminals, who are often young men, tend to be impulsive and to discount the future. The possibility of a longer prison sentence is too far away to pose as a deterrent. Second, even after they turn 18, there’s still a fair amount of uncertainty around the length of their sentence. The Harris County data show jail time often depends on the judge that’s assigned, the prosecutor, available evidence, and how busy the court is, which determines the odds that someone convicted ends up with a plea bargain. Longer sentences aren’t much of a deterrent because, even in our era of mass incarceration, the possibility of actually going to prison is too uncertain and too far in the future to meaningfully impact behavior.