Less crime, and fewer incarcerations: As New York became a safer city, prisons closed too
“Based on the accomplishments in states with the largest decreases in incarceration, we know that a successful decarceration recipe includes bold reform agendas, organizational moxie, and powerful public engagement,” said Greene. “New York’s unprecedented reduction in reliance on incarceration has been a bottom-up, advocacy-driven, community-focused strategy. When these ingredients include robust and sustained advocacy, we see that it is possible and realistic to reduce reliance on incarceration by half.”
The paper explores the grassroots advocacy and increased numbers of responsive and reform-minded public officials at both the local and state levels that reversed the laws and practices prompting mass incarceration, including those generated during the nation’s war on drugs. Successful campaigns to reduce incarceration and abolish the harsh Rockefeller-era mandatory drug sentences were waged by groups such as the Prison Moratorium Project, the Correctional Association, and the Drug Policy Alliance.
“This report reinforces the critically important role of advocacy and grassroots organizing in cutting incarceration by over 50 percent while reducing crime in New York City,” said Glenn E. Martin, founder and president of JustLeadershipUSA. “It proves that we have to be audacious in our thinking and actions to end mass incarceration, and invest in the ideas and leadership of those directly impacted in order to make big victories possible. In New York City, the next bold step is to close Rikers Island Jail Complex and invest in communities. The N.Y.C. story has inspired JustleadershipUSA’s mission, to reduce the U.S. correctional population by half by the year 2030.”
The study’s co-authors point to the organizations and service providers who successfully educated judges, prosecutors, probation officials, policymakers, and the public about workable and humane alternatives to locking up New Yorkers. The New York Police Department reduced felony drug arrests by 66 percent between 1998 and 2015, even though drug use in the city remained stable.
“Communities across the country are working not only for an end to the drug war and mass incarceration, but for systemic change,” said Lorenzo Jones, co-executive director of the Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice. “‘Better By Half’ shows that with an informed, powerful base of directly impacted people, policy reformers, and community organizers, we can win real reform, change systems, and strengthen and secure safety and justice for all. This lesson is applicable across the country, and we hope funders, researchers, and policymakers in particular take heed.”
Michael Blake of the New York State Assembly and fall fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University noted, “We are at a critical moment in time for criminal justice of ensuring that all of us are safe, improving relations between communities of color and law enforcement, and finding more ways to reduce the prison population while increasing economic opportunities for New Yorkers.”
As America grapples with the challenges of and solutions to mass incarceration, the paper highlights lessons from New York City, combined with insights from California and New Jersey, arguing that it is possible to be twice as safe with half as much incarceration.
“The paper by Schiraldi and Greene shows that very large cuts in incarceration need not pose any threat to public safety,” said Bruce Western, faculty chair of the Kennedy School Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management and former vice chair of the National Research Council Panel on the Causes and Consequences of High Incarceration Rates. “In fact, New York City may now be in a virtuous circle where low incarceration rates and low rates of crime are mutually reinforcing.”
This story is published courtesy of the Harvard Gazette, Harvard University’s official newspaper. For additional university news, visit Harvard.edu.
