Did Mass Incarceration Make Us Feel Safer?

• In Event: The Impact of Criminal Justice Policy and Practice on Fear and Perceived Risk

Abstract

In the latter part of the 20th century, incarceration rates increased dramatically in the United States, a phenomenon widely referred to as “mass incarceration.” A substantial body of research has evaluated the impact of mass incarceration on a variety of outcomes including crime rates, population health, and community social organization. Yet, a fundamental question about the consequences of mass imprisonment has yet to be addressed: Did it make Americans feel safer? The inattention to this question is surprising given that much of the legislative and public policy action that facilitated mass incarceration was predicated on the idea of reducing fear among the public. To address this gap, we examine the impact of mass incarceration on fear of crime by integrating data on fear from the General Social Survey (GSS) with data on county incarceration patterns from the National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) and data on other relevant community conditions from a variety of sources. The results of our study make an important contribution to knowledge about the impact of mass incarceration and about the structural sources of fear in America.

Authors

• Andrea Corradi, Pennsylvania State University

• Eric P. Baumer, Pennsylvania State University