Reducing Jail Populations Did Not Increase Crime, Study Finds

There is no correlation between criminal justice reforms and post-COVID-19-era spikes in violent crime, concludes the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur's Safety and Justice Challenge and the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance in a new report. The report contends that cities and counties that safely implement reforms are not witnessing a spike in violent crime. The report includes data from 16 cities and counties to determine how criminal justice reform efforts have affected crime rates. The data runs from 2015, before many sites had implemented jail population reduction strategies, through 2023. The report says there is no correlation between changes in incarceration and violent crime. It says that jail populations were lowered safely, without driving an increase in returns to jail custody. About 75 percent of people who were released pretrial were not rebooked into jail a rate that has been unchanged for almost a decade.  

Of the people rebooked after being released pretrial, nearly a third were for administrative reasons, not for being accused of new crime. Only 2 percent of people released pretrial returned to jail charged with a violent crime, a number that has remained consistent before and after reforms were implemented. "Wee do not need to choose between safe communities and making the criminal justice system fairer,” said MacArthur's Laurie Garduque. “We must rely on numbers rather than false narratives, and that means pressing ahead with changes that reduce the footprint of the justice system while keeping communities safe.” The data analysis "shows that people released pretrial are still very unlikely to return to jail for any reason, and even less likely to return charged with a violent crime,” said Reagan Daly of the CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance. “Our research underscores that safely reducing jail populations can be achieved." Some of the reform strategies that contributed to lower jail populations included increased cite and release policies, pretrial release on personal recognizance, diversion programs and alternative sanctions for technical violations.