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Crime & Punishment

Preventing crime is the most basic of government functions. But despite some important progress in recent years, North Carolina governments still have much to do to meet this fundamental responsibility. For example, the crime rate was about 16 percent higher in 2002 than it was in 1983 and remains far higher than the rates of the 1950s and 1960s. In high-crime areas of the state, the goals of education reform or economic development will be difficult to achieve without making more progress in improving safety.

Why The Crime Rate Rose

For much of this century, state and local officials gradually increased reliance on sentence reduction and lighter punishments as an alternative to increased incarceration. Even after the state began to address its prisonovercrowding problem in the mid-1970s, it failed to make incapacitating criminals a high enough priority. The results of North Carolina's policy are highlighted by a 1994 American Legislative Exchange Council study. ALEC found that from 1980 to 1992 the 10 states with the largest increases in their incarceration rates (250 percent) experienced an average 8 percent reduction in crime rates. The 10 states with the lowest incarceration rate increases (15 percent) experienced an average 51 percent increase in crime. ALEC found that from 1980 to 1992 North Carolina was the only state in the nation in which the overall incarceration rate declined (it dropped 6 percent). Simultaneously, the state’s crime rate rose by 25 percent, the second-highest increase in the nation.

Instead of new cells, North Carolina had pursued a policy of alternative punishments (including parole and probation), designed to rehabilitate criminals or simply keep them from the “dehumanizing” conditions supposedly rampant in state prisons. By 1990 four-fifths of state convicts were enrolled in alternative programs, and just one-fifth were serving prison time. As a result, one-third of new prison admissions each year were convicts incarcerated for violating the terms of their alternative punishments.

In 1987, after two previous 1980s initiatives making parole more prevalent, the state adopted its infamous prison cap in response to federal lawsuits alleging violation of prisoners’ constitutional rights. By 1994 the average sentence for misdemeanants in North Carolina was 23.9 months, but the average time served was 1.4 months, or about 6 percent of the sentence. The average sentence for felons was 8.8 years, but the average time served was 8.1 months, or about 8 percent. In just 10 years, parole came to play a shockingly significant role in offender dispositions. In 1985 the number of prisoners paroled equaled 48.7 percent of convicts admitted into the prison system. By 1994 parolees equaled 83.4 percent of admissions.

In 1994 Gov. Jim Hunt called a special legislative session on crime, and the General Assembly responded by enacting “Structured Sentencing,” touted as the solution to the state’s crime problem. It was to increase time served, both to incapacitate criminals and deter others from becoming criminals. The result was a decline in reported crimes. The new laws increased time served by violent offenders by doing away with parole. Unfortunately, the laws actually decreased sentence lengths for some crimes. By treating some nonviolent crimes as undeserving of serious punishments, the system ignored a fundamental rule of criminal behavior: criminals often begin their careers with petty crimes, then move up to more serious offenses. Still, building additional prisons and lengthening sentences have resulted in lower crime rates (see graph). Also contributing to the improvements have been local policies. Many cities have deployed additional police officers and used innovative “community policing” techniques to discourage petty crimes and build community trust.

To maintain these positive trends, North Carolina must continue to expand prison capacity as quickly and efficiently as possible so that more criminals can receive just (that is, longer) sentences. Using inmate labor and constructing larger, more cost-effective prisons than the current small, scattered ones can free construction money for other purposes, such as keeping criminals incarcerated longer. Privately built and operated prisons also can provide significant cost savings. One study found that privately operated prisons cost 35 percent less than publicly operated ones, while actually providing higher quality services in many areas.

Incarceration alone will not solve North Carolina's crime crisis. We must also focus on preventing crime by addressing the conditions that give rise to it. That does not mean increasing government spending on jobs programs or social programs. There is no historical relationship between crime rates and either poverty, joblessness, or government social spending. Crime rates during the Great Depression were much lower than they are today. The real cause of crime is not a poverty of resources but a poverty of values. Research has clearly documented a relationship between out-of-wedlock births and the likelihood that those children will grow up to be criminals. That means that welfare reform and other measures to reduce government dependency and illegitimacy are irreplaceable elements of a successful crime-prevention strategy.

Recommendations

1. State leaders need to devise a comprehensive plan for identifying and incapacitating the career criminals who commit a disproportionate share of crime in North Carolina. The state needs to build enough prison space to lengthen sentences for serious crimes, but should use prison labor, larger regional prisons, and privatization where appropriate to reduce the cost to taxpayers.
2. Local leaders should employ community policing, volunteers, and other ways to deter criminal activity in their communities. A major part of the prevention effort should be to continue to reform the welfare system, which destroys families and therefore creates the “poverty of values” that leads to criminal behavior.

To view higher quality graphs, download Agenda 2004 [560KB Acrobat].