Prisons are not the answer to preventing crime [ Reprinted with kind permission from The Conversation]
The U.S. incarcerates more people than any other place in the world. Warehousing people in prison is costly and unsustainable. Shutterstock Jodi Viljoen , Simon Fraser University and Gina Vincent , UMass Chan Medical School Each day in the United States and Canada, it seems like the news media reports another shooting or act of violence that ends in tragedy. As a result, politicians and the public often leap to the conclusion that violence is on the rise and that the answer is to throw more people behind bars. However, this conclusion flies in the face of research. Crime statistics demonstrate that since the 1990s, rates of violence have fallen in the U.S. and Canada . And although some people are dangerous and need to be in prison, in other cases, locking people up is a waste of taxpayer dollars that may do more harm than good . Rather than getting tough on crime, justice agencies need to get smart on crime . For instance, rather t...