America’s incarceration rate is in decline
105 comments
·June 25, 2025strict9
>Rapidly declining numbers of youth are committing crimes, getting arrested, and being incarcerated. This matters because young offenders are the raw material that feeds the prison system: As one generation ages out, another takes its place on the same horrid journey.
Another factor which will soon impact this, if it isn't already, is the rapidly changing nature of youth. Fertility rates have been dropping since 2009 or so. Average age of parents is increasing. Teen pregnancy on a long and rapid decline.
All of these working together means that each year the act of having a child is much more deliberate and the parents likely having more resources. Which in turn should mean fewer youth delinquency, which as the article notes is how most in prison started out.
JumpCrisscross
It's lead.
Lead concentration in America "rapidly increased in the 1950s and then declined in the 1980s" [1]. There is a non-linear discontinuity among kids born in the mid 80s, with linear improvements through to those born in the late 2000s [2].
Arrest rates for violent crimes are highest from 15 to 29 years old (particularly 17 to 23-year olds) [3]. They're particularly low for adults after 50 years old.
We're around 40 years from the last of the high-lead children. 17 years ago is the late 2000s.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10406...
[2] https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP7932
[3] https://kagi.com/assistant/d2c6fdd5-73dd-4952-ae40-1f36aef1e...
PartiallyTyped
Can we blame lead for the US’ electoral landscape too?
bluGill
> the act of having a child is much more deliberate and the parents likely having more resources
This is both good and bad. Having a child is very difficult, but it gets harder as you get older. You lack a lot of monitory resources as a teen or the early 20s, but you have a lot more energy, as you get older your body starts decaying you will lack energy. A kid had at 40 will still be depending on your when you are 55 (kids is only 15), and if the kids goes to college may have some dependency on you when your peers are retiring. Plus if your kids have kids young as well as you, you be around and have some energy for grandkids.
Don't read the above as advocating having kids too young, it is not. However don't wait until you think it is the perfect time. If you are 25 you should be seriously thinking in the next 2 years, and by 30 have them (if of course kids are right for you - that is a complex consideration I'm not going to get into). Do not let fear of how much it will cost or desire for more resources first stop you from having kids when you are still young enough to do well.
pamelafox
I had my children at 36 and 38, and I'm the mother, and energy-wise, I've had no issues. Yes, they considered me to be of "advanced maternal age" in the OB department and gave me special treatment due to it, but my doctors told me that the "advanced maternal age" threshold (35) was based off outdated research anyway. In the bay area, most of the mothers I've met were around that age, and my friends are having their kids at the same age.
It was really nice that I had time to establish my career and figure things out before having kids.
toomuchtodo
> Do not let fear of how much it will cost or desire for more resources first stop you from having kids when you are still young enough to do well.
I have tried to approach this specific idea as charitably as possible, but find it to be abhorrent when having children is a selfish act in of itself. If one can’t afford them, one shouldn’t be creating new life simply because you want to. I’m aware this likely does not apply to the folks and income brackets on this forum.
(Cost of ~$330k to raise a child 0-18 in 2023 dollars; 14 million children live in food secure households in the US; 2.5M children experience homelessness at any one time; 60 percent of Americans can’t meet their basic needs on their income)
c22
I had kids in my late 30s and they tested my patience and emotional regulation to an extent greater than any other experience of my life. I was somewhat emotionally volatile in my 20s and I can't imagine my kids having better outcomes if I'd had to learn to parent at that time in my life.
wvenable
My children are 12 years apart in age and being a parent in my 20s was a much better experience. I had less money, but I had more time. I wiser now, but I had more energy. I could relate to being a kid more.
I'm not suggesting it's better. But people seem to automatically assume that being older when having kids as better. I know some much older parents who were not good parents. I know I would not make a good parent to a younger child now that I'm in my 40s.
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anyfoo
We did wait for the “perfect” time, and are very happy we did.
I got my son at almost 40, and I’m positive I’m a much better parent because of that. Sure, kids cost energy, but at 40 and 50 you’re not geriatric. I often get the opportunity to compare our parenting style to younger parents, and it’s clear that they often have some emotional growing up to do themselves. They complain about normal parenting things that we just shrug about, they are torn between their career and raising a kid, and most importantly they often lack patience, where to us it just comes natural.
Izikiel43
> but at 40 and 50 you’re not geriatric.
biologically, and for pregnancy, yes you are.
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rawgabbit
This is good news. The level of crime and number of offenders has decreased.
Quotes from the article:
> As of 2016—the most recent year for which data are available—the average man in state prison had been arrested nine times, was currently incarcerated for his sixth time, and was serving a 16-year sentence.
> But starting in the late 1960s, a multidecade crime wave swelled in America, and an unprecedented number of adolescents and young adults were criminally active. In response, the anti-crime policies of most local, state, and federal governments became more and more draconian.
> Rapidly declining numbers of youth are committing crimes, getting arrested, and being incarcerated.TrainedMonkey
Like all complex phenomena 1960s crime wave probably has many causes, but lead poisoning stands out - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis
WalterBright
> Rapidly declining numbers of youth
May be the result of a rapidly declining birth rate.
bilbo0s
Rapidly declining numbers of youth are committing crimes, getting arrested, and being incarcerated
Well also, the number one crime these youths were getting arrested for was drug possession. With drug trafficking being second. 15 years ago the vast majority of people in prison in texas were there for drug possession or trafficking. If all of a sudden everyone's drug of choice is marijuana, and it's being decriminalized everywhere, I have to think that makes it hard to get the numbers you used to get in terms of arrests.
Not that this is a bad thing. I'm just pointing out that while arrests did go down, I don't necessarily believe that the prevalence of pot smoking decreased.
One benefit is that this new environment should help them to have better futures than the youths that came before them.
1vuio0pswjnm7
The Atlantic suggests this results from the release of those convicted during a decades long crime wave, which apprently took place when many of us grew up. Perhaps it also tracks with a progressive decline in law enforcement. Whether that is because crime waves not longer exist or whether it is some other reason is a question for the reader. A substanbtial amount of crime is now done via internet. Few are ever convicted.
saulpw
Marijuana possession was the number one crime and is now legal in a majority of states. This seems like the high-order bit.
0xbadcafebee
^ This. The drug war was an attempt for conservatives to punish poor people for using a harmless drug (marijuana) to help cope with systemic inequality, and kids for wanting to have fun.
From 1950-1970, America introduced new mandatory minimums for possession of marijuana. First-time offenses carried a minimum of 2-10 yrs in prison and a fine of up to $20,000. They repealed these minimums in 1970 because it did jack shit to stop people smoking. The govt even recommended decriminalizing marijuana in 1970, but Nixon rejected it.
But then came The Parents. As fucking usual, parents "concerned for their children" began a years-long lobbying and marketing effort to convince the public any kind of drug was evil and harming kids. Through the 1980s their lobbying spread to all corners of the government, influencing messaging and policy. So finally in 1986, Reagan introduced new mandatory minimums for marijuana, based on amount. Having 100 marijuana plants was the same crime as 100 grams of heroin. And then they went further; if you we caught with marijuana three times, you got a life sentence. Life. For pot. In 1989, Bush Sr. officially declared the "new" War on Drugs. And we've all been paying for it ever since.
casenmgreen
Freakonomics argued that crime correlates to whether or not abortion is available.
If it is not, crime rates are up, and by a lot.
If it is, crime rates are down.
When you flip from one to the other, takes about 15/20 years for the effect to show up.
Rationale is that forcing parents to have their kids when they're not ready for them significantly increases delinquency in young adults.
This is apparently the only possible theory at the moment. It's not proven, of course, but the other theories which were given have been found lacking. This is the only theory which has some evidence, and hasn't been found to be wrong.
jjcob
I doubt there is a single explanation. I think it's multiple factors.
Unleaded gasoline could also be a factor. Every country has shown drops in crime rates when leaded gasoline was phased out.
If I recall, leaded gasoline was phased out in the 80ies, which fits a drop in crime rates in the 90ies.
Izkata
The drop in crime also correlates very well with releases of popular violent video games: http://www.gamerdad.com/blog/2008/04/08/downard-spiral/
krunck
Yes but I'd say reduction of lead use in general.
leptons
Availability of pornography has cut down the rate of rapes significantly. Too bad the republicans are going to try to ban all porn pretty soon, according to their stated agenda. They do love their wealthy donors that run the prison-industrial-complex.
bilbo0s
A lot of the current drop has decriminalization of drugs as a contributing factor. Same principle.
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yesbut
That correlation has pretty much been debunked.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime...
gosub100
Why abortion and not contraceptives?
wvenable
Maybe people who are bad at pre-planning are also potentially poor parents.
wil421
They probably aren’t using them.
y-curious
Women's contraceptives in the states require a prescription. Which requires a doctor's appointment + insurance. If you are poor or live with strict parents (ironically), you are much less likely to seek them out.
Condoms are their own bag of worms. I think there are cultural differences in condom use here, as well as the same problem with them being a cost. This doesn't even touch on men being shady with stealthing and pressure.
On the other hand, the abortion clinic requires only an appointment and a way to get there.
FuriouslyAdrift
In the 1980s, condoms were "behind the counter" things you had to ask for and suffer the critical eye of the pharmacy worker (at least in small town USA).
It's no wonder we had so many teen pregnancies.
mystified5016
I'd wager that the foster system is a huge factor. Poverty is likely the rest.
When you don't give a human resources, they will find a way to take it. When you force humans with no resources to have kids, well...
holmesworcester
How much of this is due to smartphones? The years seem to line up.
2014 seemed like the big year where smartphone ubiquity changed US teen culture. Less boredom, dumb adventure, drinking, etc. (For better or worse but in this case better.)
y-curious
Devils advocate: smartphones have made antisocial tiktok trends, "fast money" hacks and paint an unrealistic portrait of success. Before, only rappers could be young and rich and flashy. Now, seemingly regular teens are millionaires and this is constantly fed into young people's feeds.
kovek
This is interesting. I don't know why it's happening. However, this book deserves a mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur... . It shares statistics on how violence has been decreasing throughout the history of humanity.
reverendsteveii
as a followup to that (excellent) book, here's Barry Glassner - A Culture of Fear. The Better Angels of Our Nature talks about how violence has always been declining. A Culture of Fear talks about how the rate of that decline has been increasing since the 90s but people actually perceive things as becoming more dangerous rather than less, and attempts to come up with an answer as to why that may be the case.
SAI_Peregrinus
The most obvious answer is large-scale media. I can learn about a shooting on the other side of the country within hours of it happening, and think "that could happen where I am". Likewise with any other news, which by definition is about out-of-the-ordinary events. There's more news about violence because there's more news, not because there's more violence, but it feels like there's more violence.
spogbiper
"if it bleeds, it leads" is (or was, i'm old) a common saying regarding the news media. It may be that there is more news that scares us because scaring us is profitable
watwut
20 century features pretty much largest genocides ever. Multiple of them. And in addition, things that we do not count as genocides, but still involved deliberate killing of millions.
That particular book was criticized by historians a lot.
kazinator
In part due to simple demographics?
If most prisoners are younger, starting their incarceration incidents in their teens or twenties, then basically the fewer young people you have, the less people in prison:
https://populationeducation.org/u-s-population-pyramids-over...
Compare 1960 to 2020.
viktorcode
In the light of that dynamic I fund it curious that Russian prisons population is rapidly declining too, but for very different reason.
low_tech_love
You might be half joking, but your hypothesis is interesting to show how many different reasons can exist for the same phenomenon. Lots of people here talking about lead, for whatever reason, but also decriminalisation of drugs, abortion, etc. Most are logical explanations, even if contradictory. Very nice to see how we need to be super aware of statistics; we can force the numbers to say anything we want.
rwmj
The question not even asked by the article is ... why?
standardUser
From what I've read, mostly sentencing reform and less aggressive drug prosecution/more drug diversion. That and the general trend for crime to recede in wealthy, stable societies.
ToucanLoucan
The answer is likely unknowable, but I can think of several factors that tie into the plummeting birth rate:
- While the Freakanomics citation of widespread access to abortion has been debunked as a sole cause, I think it remains credible for at least a contributing factor. Fewer young people born to folks who are too poor/busy/not wanting to raise them is doubtlessly going to reduce the number of young offenders who become the prison system's regular customers their whole lives.
- Beyond just abortion, contraceptives and contraceptive education have gotten much more accessible. For all the endless whining from the right about putting condoms on cucumbers poisoning children's minds with vegetable-based erotica, as it turns out, teens have sex, as they probably have since time immemorial, and if you teach them how to do it safely and don't threaten their safety if they do, they generally will do it safely.
- Additionally, there has been a gradual ramp-up in how badly negative outcomes stack in life, and "messing up" on your path to adulthood carries higher costs than it ever has. Possibly contradicting myself, teens are having less sex than ever, as all broad forms of socializing have decreased apart from social media, which is exploding but doesn't really present opportunities to bone down. Add to it, young people are more monitored than they've ever been. When I was coming up, I had hours alone to myself to do whatever I wanted, largely wherever I wanted as long as I could get there and my parents knew (though they couldn't verify where I was). Now we have a variety of apps for digitally stalking your kids, and that's not even going into the mess of extracurricular activities, after school events, classes, study sessions, sports, etc. that modern kids get. They barely have any unmonitored time anymore.
- Another point: alternative sexuality (or the lack thereof) is more accepted than it's ever been by mainstream society, and anything that isn't man + woman is virtually guaranteed to not create unwanted pregnancy unless something truly interesting happens.
- Lastly, I would cite that even if you have a heterosexual couple who is interested in having kids, that's harder than ever. A ton of folks my age can't even afford a home, let alone one suitable for starting a family. The ones that do start families live either in or uncomfortably close to poverty, and usually in one or another variety of insecurity. The ones that can afford it often choose not to for... I mean there's so many reasons bringing kids into the world right now feels unappealing. It's a ton of work that's saddled onto 2 people in a categorically a-historic way, in an economy where two full time salaries is basically mandatory if you want to have a halfway decent standard of living, and double that for one that includes children. That's not even going into the broader state of the world, how awful the dating market is especially for women, so many reasons and factors.
Any stressed animal population stops reproduction first. I don't see why we'd think people would be any different.
123yawaworht456
>how awful the dating market is especially for women
"World Ends, Women Most Affected."
kiernanmcgowan
> After peaking at just more than 1.6 million Americans in 2009
> But a prison is a portrait of what happened five, 10, and 20 years ago.
Is this just a result of the dropping crime rates since the mid 90s, but on a 20ish year lag?
Jtsummers
That's what the article goes on to describe, yes. Declining crime rates mean fewer new prisoners, but high recidivism rates plus long sentences means many old prisoners are still in prison. As those old prisoners die off or for whatever reason don't commit more crimes after release, the total population declines.
standardUser
Mandatory minimum sentences can be 10, 15 or 20 years depending on the quantity of drug and other factors. Often just for possession. The US spent several decades filling our prisons with people using those sentences, and we still do, just not as aggressively.
mauvehaus
From the end of World War II until the mid-1970s, the proportion of Americans in prison each year never exceeded 120 per 100,000
I guess if you're considering a sufficiently small population you could go from ~600,000 people in Vermont * 120/100,000 -> ~720 imprisoned people in Vermont trivially, but we're the second smallest state. This certainly doesn't scale to cities over a million. At least I'd start having to think harder about it.
WorkerBee28474
> 120 per 100,000 ... Is there a reason for this?
Crime statistics (e.g. homicides) are often quoted as 'n per 100,000 population'.
It's probably also easier for mental math, e.g. here's a city with 1 million population, that's 10 100Ks, so 1200 people in prison.
InitialLastName
It also lets you abstract away or compare to stats that are scaled to population but might not be 1:1 with a person, e.g. "thefts per 100,000 population per year" where one person might either commit or be the victim of multiple thefts in a year.
everforward
120 per 100,000 includes significant digits. 0.12% could be anywhere from 120-124 per 100,000. You'd really want 0.120%, but that's confusing for different reasons.
Worse would be 1,000 per 100,000, which is 1% but there's no way to tell that it's not rounded or truncated.
ninthcat
"120" and "0.12%" both have 2 significant digits. "120." and "0.120%" have 3 significant digits.
everforward
I would presume, perhaps incorrectly, that “120 per 100,000” has 3 significant digits and “12 per 10,000” has 2.
I’ve never seen a period used like that in census data. It seems like a conscious choice because the period is confusing when used in the middle of a phrase. 12E1 makes more sense but is abnormal notation for many people.
https://archive.is/pe7eH