For more information or to

schedule an interview, contact

Naren Daniel at:
(646) 292-8381 or
naren.daniel@nyu.edu.

Louisiana Fact Sheet:

The Effect of Imprisonment on Crime
By Lauren-Brooke Eisen, Julia Bowling*

A new Brennan Center report, What Caused the Crime Decline?, examines 14 different theories for the
massive decline in crime across the country over the last two decades. It provides a rigorous
empirical analysis conducted by a team of economics and criminal justice researchers on over 40
years of data, gathered from all 50 states and the 50 largest cities.
New Brennan Center Report Findings
Over the past 40 years, states across the country have sought to fight crime by implementing policies
to increase incarceration. The result: The United States is now the largest jailor in the world. With 5
percent of the worlds population, we have 25 percent of its prisoners.
Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. One in 75 adult Louisianans is behind
bars, nearly twice the national average. In 2013, the Times-Picayune reported that Louisianas
incarceration rate is nearly five times Irans, 13 times Chinas and 20 times Germanys. 1 The state
gives financial rewards to local sheriffs to keep jails full with state prisoners, a perverse incentive that
has contributed to the increase in the number of prisoners to almost 40,000 by 2013. In 2013,
Louisiana spent $713 million on corrections.
At the same time, from its height in 1993 to 2013, crime in Louisiana dropped by 40 percent.
What caused this drop? Was it the explosion in incarceration? Or was it something else?
The reports central findings:

Increased incarceration had a limited effect on reducing crime for the last two
decades: Increased incarceration had some effect, likely somewhere around 0-10 percent,
on reducing crime from 1990 to 2000. Since 2000, however, increased incarceration had an
almost zero effect on crime. Further, a number of states -- California, Michigan, New Jersey,
New York, and Texas -- have successfully reduced imprisonment while crime continued to
fall.
Other factors reduced crime: Increased numbers of police officers, some data-driven
policing techniques, changes in income, decreased alcohol consumption, and an aging

* Lauren-Brooke Eisen is Counsel and Julia Bowling is Research Associate at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. They
are co-authors of What Caused the Crime Decline?

population played a role in reducing crime. In particular, this report finds that the policing
technique known as CompStat is associated with a 5 to 15 percent decrease in crime. A
review of past research indicates that consumer confidence and inflation also likely
contributed to crime reduction.
Incarceration & Crime in Louisiana
As illustrated in Figure 1, as of 2013, Louisiana imprisons 850 people per 100,000, compared to 496
for the U.S. at large. This rate is higher than any other state.
In recent years, Louisiana advanced several legislative reforms to reduce imprisonment. In 2011 and
2012, the state enacted laws increasing judicial discretion to waive minimum mandatory sentences,
allowing parole officers greater discretion to offer non-prison sanctions for violations, and creating
an early release program for elderly prisoners. In 2014, the state enacted HB 791, which increased
the monetary threshold necessary to trigger a felony theft offense from $500 to $750. But the law
also created mandatory minimum sentences of five years for theft of $25,000 or more. Louisiana
also passed a law that will sentence people convicted of selling any amount of heroin to a mandatory
minimum of 10 years even for a first offense.
Figure 1: Imprisonment Rates in Louisiana and the U.S. (1980-2013)

As shown in Figure 2, as incarceration rose from 1980 (when Louisiana had 8,889 prisoners), the
effectiveness of increased incarceration adding new prisoners steadily declined. By 2000,
imprisonment increased four-fold to 35,207 prisoners, and effectiveness on crime declined to
essentially zero. The marginal effect on crime of adding more people to prisons remains at
essentially zero today.
This reports findings support further reforms to reduce Louisianas incarcerated population and
show this can be achieved without added crime.

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Figure 2: Effectiveness of Imprisonment on Crime in Louisiana (1980-2013)

Policing & Crime

One policing approach, CompStat, which instills strong management and data-driven practices,
played a role in bringing down crime in cities where implemented. The introduction of CompStatstyle programs was responsible for a 5 to 15 percent decrease in crime in the 50 largest cities
nationally.
CompStat was widely implemented in American cities starting in the 1990s. Our report only looked
at the 50 most populous cities in the United States that implemented CompStat. There may be cities
in Louisiana that utilize CompStat-style practices.
Little analysis has been conducted on the effectiveness of how police fight crime. CompStat is one of
the most consistent, easily identifiable, and widespread policing techniques employed during the
time period under examination. Although different cities deploy it differently, the general objective is
the same: to implement strong management and accountability within police departments to execute
strategies based in robust data collection to reduce and prevent crime. Our research also found that
increased numbers of police officers also played a role in reducing crime.
Conclusion
Public and political pressure to effectively fight crime and improve public safety has been used to
justify incarceration despite the economic and human toll. This report finds that this one-size fits
all use of imprisonment to punish crime has passed the point of diminishing returns. In essence,
adding more and more people to prison is no longer producing the expected crime control benefits.
As state budgets grow tighter, government should invest in policies that achieve their intended goals.
Prioritizing modern, evidence-based criminal justice policies with record of success over costly and
ineffective over-incarceration seems to be the best way forward in Louisiana and nationwide.
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Cindy Chang, Louisiana Is the Worlds Prison Capital, TIMESPICAYUNE (May 29, 2012),
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/louisiana_is_the_worlds_prison.html.

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