Over the last several decades, the United States used a get tough approach to fight crime. This approach involved longer prison terms, the building of many prisons and jails, and the privatization of prisons. Scholars doubt that this surge in imprisonment achieved significant crime reduction at an affordable cost, and they worry that it has led to greater problems and injustices.
Many of these scholars favor an approach to crime borrowed from the field of public health. In the areas of health and medicine, a public health approach tries to treat people who are already ill, but especially focuses on preventing disease and illness before they begin. While physicians try to help people who already have cancer, medical researchers constantly search for the causes of cancer so that they can try to prevent it before it affects anyone. This model is increasingly being applied to criminal behavior, and criminologists have advanced several ideas that, if implemented with sufficient funds and serious purpose, hold great potential for achieving significant, cost-effective reductions in crime (Barlow & Decker 2010; Frost, Freilich, & Clear 2010; Lab 2010). Many of their proposed solutions rest on the extensive body of theory and research regarding the factors underlying crime in the US, while other proposals call for criminal justice reforms. We highlight some of these strategies here, as well as strategies to lighten the consequences of social control and other problems of the criminal justice system.
Applying Social Research
“Three Strikes” Laws Strike Out
The get-tough approach has involved, among other things, mandatory minimum sentencing, in which judges are required to give convicted offenders a minimum prison term, often several years long, rather than a shorter sentence or probation.
Beginning in the 1990s, one of the most publicized types of mandatory sentencing has been the “three strikes and you’re out” policy that mandates an extremely long sentence – at least twenty-five years – and sometimes life imprisonment for offenders convicted of a third (or, in some states, a second) felony. The intent of these laws, enacted by about half the states and the federal government, is to reduce crime by keeping dangerous offenders behind bars for many years and by deterring potential offenders from committing crime. Sufficient time since the first three strikes laws were passed has elapsed to enable criminologists to assess whether they have, in fact, reduced crime.
Studies of this issue find that three strikes laws do not reduce serious crime and, in fact, may even increase the number of homicides. Several studies have focused on California, where tens of thousands of offenders have been sentenced under the state’s three strikes law passed in 1994. Almost all these studies conclude that California’s law did not reduce subsequent crime or did so by only a negligible amount. A few studies also have examined nationwide samples of city and state crime rates in the states that adopted three strikes laws and in the states that did not do so. These studies also fail to find that three strikes laws have reduced crime. As one of these studies, by three criminologists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, concludes, “Consistent with other studies, ours finds no credible statistical evidence that passage of three strikes laws reduces crime by deterring potential criminals or incapacitating repeat offenders” (Kovandzic, Sloan, & Vieraitis 2004). The national studies even find that three strikes laws have increased the number of homicides. This latter finding is certainly an unintended consequence of these laws and may stem from decisions by felons facing a third strike to kill witnesses so as to avoid life imprisonment.
In retrospect, it is not very surprising that three strikes laws do not work as intended. Many criminals simply do not think they will get caught and thus are not likely to be deterred by increased penalties. Many are also under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol at the time of their offense, making it even less likely they will worry about being caught. In addition, many three strikes offenders tend to be older (because they are being sentenced for their third felony, not just their first) and thus are already “aging out” beyond the high-crime age group, 15–25. Thus three strikes laws target offenders whose criminality is already declining because they are getting older.
In addition to the increase in homicides, research has identified other problems produced by three strikes laws. Because three strikes defendants do not want a life term, some choose a jury trial instead of pleading guilty. Jury trials are expensive and slow compared to guilty pleas and thus cost the prosecution both money and time. In another problem, the additional years that three strikes offenders spend in prison are costing the states millions of dollars in yearly imprisonment costs and in health-care costs as these offenders reach their elderly years.
As should be clear, the body of three strikes research has important policy implications, as noted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham scholars: “(P)olicy makers should reconsider the costs and benefits associated with three strikes laws” (Kovandzic, Sloan, & Vieraitis 2004: 235). Three strikes laws do not lower crime and in fact increase homicides, and they have forced the states to spend large sums of money on courts and prisons. The three strikes research strongly suggests that three strikes laws should be eliminated.
Sources: Kovandzic, Sloan, & Vieraitis, 2004; Walker, 2011
Strategies to Reduce Crime
A first strategy to reduce crime and its consequences involves national efforts to reduce poverty and to improve neighborhood living conditions. It is true that most poor people do not commit crime, but it is also true that most street crime is committed by the poor or near poor for reasons discussed earlier. Efforts that create decent-paying jobs for the poor, enhance their vocational and educational opportunities, and improve their neighborhood living conditions should all help reduce poverty and its attendant problems and thus to reduce crime (Currie 2011). A recent survey found that victims of violent crime agree with this approach:
"By a three-to-one margin, victims believe that the most effective way to reduce crime is to create more jobs and housing instead of long sentences," and "By a nearly two-to-one margin, victims of violence prefer investment in prevention, crisis assistance, and communities over more spending on arrests and punishment" (Alliance for Safety and Justice 2024: 4).
A second strategy involves changes in how parents and guardians raise boys. To the extent that the gender difference in serious crime stems from gender socialization patterns, changes in boys' socialization should help reduce crime (Collier 2004). This would take a large-scale cultural effort, but if families raise their boys to be less aggressive or dominating and to manage emotions and conflict in healthier ways, they will help reduce the nation’s crime rate. As feminist criminologists have noted:
“A large price is paid for structures of male domination and for the very qualities that drive men to be successful, to control others, and to wield uncompromising power…Gender differences in crime suggest that crime may not be so normal after all. Such differences challenge us to see that ... men have a great deal more to learn” (Daly & Chesney-Lind 1988: 527).
A third strategy similarly involves cultural changes, as well as structural changes, as gender inequality manifests in the form of violence against women. A sociological perspective tells us that economic and gender inequality are causes of gendered sexual violence, and that we must make far-reaching cultural changes by challenging people’s beliefs about sexual assault, gender inequality, and gender socialization, as well as far-reaching structural changes by engaging in efforts to reduce poverty and to empower women. This last task is especially important, for a sociological perspective on rape “means calling into question the organization of sexual inequality in our society” (Randall and Haskell 1995: 22). Other strategies may not tackle the root of gendered sexual violence but would help survivors manage its consequences. For instance, building more and offering stronger funding for rape-crisis centers, would help individuals who experience sexual assault. However, we can see inequality even in these efforts: Because the antirape movement was begun by white middle-class women feminists, the rape-crisis centers they founded tended to be near where they lived, such as college campuses, and not in the areas where women of color or low-income women lived, such as inner urban areas and Native American reservations. This meant that people of color and low-income people who experienced sexual violence were more likely lack access to the kinds of help available to white middle-class women (Matthews 1989).
A fourth strategy involves expansion of early childhood intervention (ECI) programs and nutrition services for poor families and their children. ECI programs generally involve visits by social workers, nurses, or other professionals to young, poor parents shortly after they birth a child, as these children are often at high risk for later behavioral problems (Welsh & Farrington 2007). These visits may be daily or weekly and last for several months, and they involve parenting instruction and training in other life skills. These programs have been shown to be very successful in reducing childhood and adolescent misbehavior in a cost-effective manner (Greenwood 2006). In the same vein, nutrition services would have physical and neurological health benefits that help young children's development and ability to succeed in early schooling.
Another set of strategies involves changes in the criminal justice system that should help reduce repeat offending and save much money that could be used to fund the ECI programs and other efforts just outlined. Placing nonviolent property and drug offenders in community corrections (e.g., probation, daytime supervision) would reduce the number of prison and jail inmates by hundreds of thousands annually without endangering Americans’ safety and save billions of dollars in prison costs (Jacobson 2006). These funds could also be used to improve prison and jail vocational and educational programming and drug and alcohol services, all of which are seriously underfunded. If properly funded, such programs and services hold great promise for rehabilitating many inmates (Cullen 2007).
Lessons from Other Societies
Preventing Crime and Treating Prisoners in Western Europe
The text suggests the get-tough approach that the US has been using to reduce crime has not worked in a cost-effective manner and has led to other problems, including a flood of inmates returning to their communities every year. In fighting crime, the US has much to learn from Western Europe. In contrast to the get-tough approach, Western European nations tend to use a public health model that comprises two components. The first is a focus on crime prevention that uses early childhood intervention programs and other preventive measures to address the roots of crime and other childhood and family problems. The second is a criminal justice policy that involves sentencing defendants and treating prisoners in a manner more likely to rehabilitate offenders and reduce their repeat offending than the more punitive approach in the United States.
The overall Western European approach to offenders is guided by the belief that imprisonment should be reserved for the most dangerous violent offenders, and that probation, community service, and other forms of community corrections should be used for other offenders. Because violent offenders comprise only a small proportion of all offenders, the Western European approach saves a great deal of money while still protecting public safety.
The experience of Denmark and the Netherlands is illustrative. Like the US, Denmark had to deal with rapidly growing crime rates during the 1960s. Whereas the US responded with the get-tough approach involving longer and more certain prison terms and the construction of more and more prisons, Denmark took the opposite approach: It adopted shorter prison terms for violent offenders and used the funds saved from the reduced prison costs to expand community corrections for property offenders. Finland and the Netherlands have also adopted a similar approach that favors community corrections and relatively short prison terms for violent offenders over the get-tough approach the US adopted.
All these nations save great sums of money in prison costs and other criminal justice expenses because they chose not to adopt the US get-tough approach, yet their rates of serious violent crime lag behind the US rates. Although these nations obviously differ from the US, the advantages of their approach should be kept in mind as the US evaluates its get-tough policies. There may be much to learn from their less punitive approach to crime.
Sources: Dammer & Albanese, 2011; Waller & Welsh, 2007
There are a few of many potential strategies which focus on efforts that would help address the roots of crime and, ultimately, help to reduce it. Strategies such as these would in the long run be more likely than the get-tough approach to create a safer society and at the same time save the nation billions of dollars annually.
Note that none of these proposals addresses white-collar crime, which should not be neglected in a discussion of reducing the nation’s crime problem. One reason white-collar crime is common is that the laws against it are weakly enforced. More consistent enforcement of these laws should help reduce white-collar crime, as would harsher punishments for individuals convicted of white-collar crime (Rosoff et al. 2010).
Strategies to Lessen Other Impacts
In addition to reducing crime, a variety of solutions may help reduce the impacts of other problems in the criminal justice system, such as reforms in police, sentences, and bail. Individuals may use their agency to engage in action to lessen these consequences such as by working with non-profits or joining with others in collective action.
Police reform has been proposed as a strategy to help address racialized police brutality, as well as to reduce crime. Examples of police reform include policies such as requiring body-cams at all times to record encounters between targeted groups and police, ending qualified immunity policies that allow police to avoid liability for injuries or deaths of suspected offenders, implementing stronger racial bias training, and combating the militarization of the police force that resulted in the police handling weaponry and machinery mimicking those in war as well as the culture in which police are taught to view themselves as soldiers in 'wars' against the public such as the 'war on drugs.'
Calls to 'defund the police' are not actually about defunding the police entirely, as the phrase may suggest. Rather, 'defund the police' means reallocating resources from police departments to other agencies or community-based programs that better serve community members experiencing houselessness, mental health crises, unemployment, and other concerns, particularly those related to poverty. Theoretically, this approach would free up more time and energy for police to focus on their job of public safety, lifting the burden they currently carry in responding to other concerns, and would reduce crime as the root causes of much crime – poverty, housing, mental health, and so on – are better addressed when agencies that offer those services are well-funded.
Sentencing reform may also lessen the impact of incarceration on individuals, families, and society at large. In short, mass incarceration is reduced when sentences are reduced. In fact, changes in sentencing such as accelerated releases coincided with a dramatic in the prison population since 2010. The decline in the prison population occurred for over a decade, until 2022 when the population increased again (The Sentencing Project 2024).
Changes in sentencing such as early release, along with reduced admissions, helped reduce the prison population in the 2010s.
Source: The Sentencing Project 2024
Another sentencing reform example includes eliminating remaining mandatory minimum sentencing policies that mandate a minimum sentence for specific crimes, which contributed to the rise of mass incarceration over several decades, and instead allowing judges to assign sentences with discretion. People who have been victimized by violent crime prefer this strategy: "Seven out of ten victims of violence prefer sentencing policies that allow judges to consider the individual circumstances of the crime, the victim, and the defendant over sentences that require uniform sentence lengths for specific crimes" (Alliance for Safety and Justice 2024: 4).
Individual Agency and Collective Action
Individuals and non-profit organizations have engaged in action to help address and lessen the impacts of problems in the criminal justice system. Individuals have established community-based, local, and national organizations that help address these problems, some of which have grown into large projects that not only serve the populations impacted by these problems but help educate the public and advocate for national change. For instance, The Sentencing Project "advocates for effective and humane responses to crime that minimize imprisonment and criminalization of youth and adults by promoting racial, ethnic, economic, and gender justice." In particular, they seek to end the practice of long sentencing that keep people incarcerated, end the disenfranchisement of people with convictions so that they may gain voting rights, and protect youth involved in the criminal justice system (The Sentencing Project 2025).
The Bail Project is an organization that focuses on bail reform. They recognize that the bail system it two-tiered: People with money can pay bail to be released from jail while people without money cannot. They pay bail for low-income individuals who otherwise would not be able to pay their way out of jail. Additionally, through their Community Release with Support model, they assist with notifications of and transportation to court, as well as helping individuals access support services such as for housing or substance use (The Bail Project 2025). While some politicians have claimed that bail reform would increase crime by allowing (low-income) offenders to live freely rather than being held behind bars, research suggests that bail reform does not lead to increased crime (Craigie & Grawart 2024).
People Making a Difference
College Students Protest Against Sexual Violence
Dickinson College is a small liberal-arts campus in the small town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. But in the fight against sexual violence, it loomed huge in March 2011, when up to 150 students conducted a nonviolent occupation of the college’s administrative building for three days to protest rape and sexual assault on their campus. While they read, ate, and slept inside the building, more than 250 other students held rallies outside, with the total number of protesters easily exceeding one-tenth of Dickinson’s student enrollment. The protesters held signs that said “Stop the silence, our safety is more important than your reputation” and “I value my body, you should value my rights.” One student told a reporter, “This is a pervasive problem. Almost every student will tell you they know somebody who’s experienced sexual violence or have experienced it themselves.”
Feeling that college officials had not done enough to help protect Dickinson’s women students, the students occupying the administrative building called on the college to set up an improved emergency system for reporting sexual assaults, to revamp its judicial system’s treatment of sexual assault cases, to create a sexual violence prevention program, and to develop a new sexual misconduct policy.
Rather than having police or security guards take the students from the administrative building and even arrest them, Dickinson officials negotiated with the students and finally agreed to their demands. Upon hearing this good news, the occupying students left the building on a Saturday morning, suffering from a lack of sleep and showers but cheered that they had won their demands. A college public relations official applauded the protesters, saying they “have indelibly left their mark on the college. We’re all very proud of them.” On this small campus in a small town in Pennsylvania, a few hundred college students had made a difference.
Sources: Jerving 2011; Pitz 2011
Other examples are community-based organizations that aim to reduce crime, protect youth at risk of becoming involved in the criminal justice system, or emphasize healing after victimization through restorative justice. For instance, Chicago CRED (2025) takes a targeted, integrated, and holistic prevention model to reduce violent crime in Chicago, particularly gun violence, by focusing on structural issues such as job training and education, community approaches such as street outreach, and well-being programs such as therapy and life coaching. Youth Advocate Programs, Inc (2025) provides wraparound community-based services as alternatives to youth incarceration and advocates for changes to incarceration policies and for alternatives to incarceration. Equal Justice USA (2025) uses a restorative and healing justice approach to help those harmed to rebuild their lives through dialogue and other services.
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Addressing crime, social control, and other problems related to the criminal justice system is a large feat that will take action and change at all levels – from individuals using their agency and engaging in collective action together; to community, local, and national non-profit organizations advocating for policy changes; to the institution of the state recognizing and acting to diminish these harms and to create structural changes relating to poverty, education, and job training; and the broad culture redefining gender expectations that link aggression with masculinity and rejecting the normalization and glorification of violence. Everyone has a place in this fight; you can take action.
