What Republicans and Democrats Get Wrong About Crime

Opinion|What Republicans and Democrats Get Wrong About Crime

Americans are understandably concerned about crime. Before the 2024 election, voters consistently ranked it among their top priorities. At least two states rolled back reforms this year, and prison populations in many states are starting to rise again after nearly a decade of declines.

Unfortunately, the politics of crime has become both predictable and partisan. Worse, it is largely disconnected from evidence about what works and what does not. Conservatives and progressives get some things right and some things wrong. As an economist and researcher, I urge both sides to put aside ideology and focus on the evidence to build a new, bipartisan public-safety agenda.

Progressives are largely correct that the “tough on crime” policies still championed by conservatives are overused. The United States has long tried to reduce crime by handing down heavy sentences. Locking up people who are a threat does make communities safer — there will always be an important role for prisons.

But most people quickly age out of crime. There is lots of data documenting that the likelihood of committing crime increases until ages 18 to 20, then decreases. (Crime is largely a young person’s game.) That means we are incarcerating lots of people who are no longer an active threat. It’s a waste of money and does not make us safer.

Long sentences might be useful if they deterred crime — that is, if the threat of a harsh punishment provided a meaningful incentive to obey the law. But research consistently shows that increasing the probability of getting caught is far more effective. Most would-be offenders are probably not thinking very far ahead, which means the chance they’d be arrested weighs far more than the details of any future imprisonment.

But right now, the probability of getting caught across the United States is low and falling. Clearance rates — in simplified terms, the number of arrests per reported offenses — were just 41 percent for violent crimes (including homicide) in 2023. For property crimes such as burglary and theft that same year, clearance rates were a miserable 14 percent. A vast majority of people who commit a crime get away with it.