(NewsNation) — A decreased jail population does not necessarily lead to higher rates of violent crime, a new Safety and Justice Challenge and the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance study found.
Data revealed that two years out from the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there “continues to be no apparent correlation between changes in incarceration and violent crime,” despite the frequent conflation of the topics.
The study analyzed trends in crime, incarceration and returns to jail custody in 16 cities and counties across the country through April 2023.
It expands upon an earlier series of reports from 2021 and 2023, both of which found no correlation between incarceration drops and crime spikes.
“The [2023] analysis found that jail populations were lowered safely, without driving an increase in crime or an increase in returns to jail custody,” the report reads. “A year later, the findings still hold true.”
Violent crime varied, no matter jail population
Since the SJC initiative began in 2016, cities and counties have collectively reduced around 23% of jail population, roughly 17,000 people.
A large drop in jail population was recorded at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many facilities were under emergency measures to mitigate the spread of illness. At that same time, homicide numbers grew nationally.
But SJC data shows that the relationship between jail population and violent crime has remained variable enough to disprove any connection.
The authors contend that “larger increases in incarceration rates were not always associated with larger—or any—decreases in violent crime rates,” citing incredibly different results between areas.
For instance, Buncombe County, North Carolina, saw an increase in both its incarceration rates (up to 187 per 100,000 adults in 2022, over the previous year’s 156) and its violent crime rate, up nearly 50 to 374 per 100,000 people.
Meanwhile, Cook County, Illinois, where Chicago is located, saw its incarceration rate remain steady at 140 in 2021 and 2022, with violent crime rates dropping from 511 to 403 year-over-year.
Only 2% of pretrial releases were rebooked for violent crimes
About 75% of people who were released pretrial were not rebooked into jail — a rate that’s stayed unchanged for nearly a decade.
Authors cite this as proof that the COVID-19 violent crime spark was not impacted by jail reform, adding: “On average, across SJC cities and counties, less than 20 percent of individuals released on pretrial status returned to jail on a new crime charge within six months.”
“The findings detailed in this brief, namely that individuals released pretrial are by and large not driving increases in violent crime, are extremely important to show that criminal legal system reforms aimed at reducing jail populations can be safely implemented,” the authors concluded.
