Report: Police State Gets Credit for Increased Incarceration Rates, But Not Crime Reduction

There are more police in the United States than ever before, and crime rates are at their lowest levels in 30 years. Sounds like a winning argument for tough-on-crime policymakers. But "Rethinking the Blues: How We Police in the U.S. and At What Cost," a report by the Washington. D.C. based Justice Policy Institute (JPI) instead posits that our massive police state is less an engine of crime reduction and more an instigator of fear and incarceration.

"Police forces have morphed over the years from a locally-funded and managed entity to protect public safety," the report said, "to also serving as a federally-funded jobs initiative, an engine for surveillance, and a militaristic special forces agency engaged in a war on drugs, gangs and youth."

In 2007, according to the JPI, there were 714,921 cops in the U.S. (one for every 421 Americans) just at the state and local levels. That represents a 52% increase since 1982, thanks largely to funds from the federal government through laws like the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which established grants for municipalities to hire 100,000 new police officers. Funding for police since 1982, in fact, has increased 445%.

Though proponents of larger police forces credit the increases for reduced crime rates, the JPI contends that nationally, "crime had already started to decline by the time these (federal) grants were distributed and implemented."

"Therefore," according to the report, "additional police only contributed to increases in arrests for both serious and minor offenses, without significant additional impact on crime."

Violent and property crimes, according to the JPI, have both fallen nearly 50% since 1991, when crime rates were at their highest. Arrests, however, have fallen just 20%, the report said, because police are now focusing on drug offenses, "especially small amounts of drugs." Between 1993 and 2010, arrests for drug offenses increased 45%.

The increase in arrests, according to the report, was "a likely major driver of incarceration rates." which increased 39% since 1993, reaching 732 prisoners per 100,000 people.

Among the other key findings in the JPI report is that SWAT teams, gang task forces and "other militaristic styles of policing” have resulted in the deaths of innocent people, wrongful convictions and "the disproportionate arrest of people of color." Further, this "over-policing" has negative impacts on communities, including high costs to taxpayers. The militarization of police, the JPI contends, damages lives without improving public safety.

"Any social benefit accrued from aggressive enforcement of drug and 'quality of life’ laws." the report argued, "must be weighed against these costs."

The JPI recommended that state legislatures reform laws so that local police are focused on serious offenses and aren't arresting minor offenders, resulting in increased prison populations. It also recommended that financial resources should be "reallocated" toward "positive social investments” like community-based drug treatment. And cities should allow police to issue citations rather than arrest people for low-level offenses, such as possession of small amounts of marijuana.

"With the money that governments spend on police and corrections," the report concluded, "more could be done for sustainable solutions to public safety challenges."

Source: Justice Policy Institute.

Source: "Rethinking the Blues: How We Police in the U.S. and At What Cost,” Justice Policy Institute (May 2012)

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