Do long prison sentences prevent crime? New study questions conventional wisdom

A new report from a bipartisan panel of criminal justice experts questions whether sending people to prison for 10 years or more is necessary or cost-effective.

"How Long Is Long Enough?" from the Council on Criminal Justice's Task Force on Long Sentences suggests that money spent keeping some criminal defendants locked up for long stretches would be better spent on programs that discourage crime and assist crime victims.

The task force was co-chaired by former Republican congressman (and current Fox News host) Trey Gowdy of South Carolina and Sally Yates, who served as acting U.S. attorney general during the Obama administration.

Task force director John Maki told us that research shows that after 10 years, the value of incapacitation - preventing someone from committing crimes by locking them up - maxes out. Criminal activity, especially among males, typically begins in the teen years, peaks in the early 20s, then steeply declines.

"Most people, as they age, they become less likely to reoffend," he said. "You are not going to get much more public-safety value (by keeping them in prison)."

That's important from a cost-benefit standpoint when you consider that the average cost to imprison someone in Illinois as of 2020 was $34,362 a year, according to the most recent report from the Illinois Department of Corrections.

The task force suggests that reducing long sentences in Illinois would result in only a small increase in arrests of any kind, and almost none for violent or weapons offenses.

"Some may wonder, why would we even discuss the nation's use of long prison sentences now, amid a rise in homicide rates and legitimate public concern about public safety? Because this is exactly the time to examine what will actually make our communities safer and our system more just," Yates and Gowdy said in a joint statement accompanying the report. "When crime rates increase, so do calls for stiffer sentencing, often without regard to the effectiveness or fairness of those sentences.

"Criminal justice policy should be based on facts and evidence, not rhetoric and emotion, and we should be laser-focused on strategies that make the most effective use of our limited resources."

The report found that in 2020, 63% of people in state prisons were serving a sentence of 10 or more years, up from 46% in 2005. That's due largely to a decline in people serving shorter terms, researchers found.

The gap between Black and white people receiving long terms widened during that time, from half a percentage point to 4 percentage points. And drug offenses accounted for the largest share, 20%, of those sentenced to serve 10 or more years.

If not long sentences

So, what should we be doing instead of locking people up and throwing away the key?

The task force doesn't argue that lengthy prison terms are never necessary, but the panel suggests 14 recommendations for state lawmakers and leaders in the criminal justice system. They include:

• Shifting savings from reductions in the use of long prison sentences to programs that prevent violence and address the trauma it causes individuals, families and communities.

• Allowing judges to consider all relevant facts and circumstances when imposing a long sentence, and requiring that sentencing enhancements based on criminal history are driven by individualized assessments of risk and other factors.

• Providing selective "second look" sentence review opportunities and expanding access to sentence-reduction credits.

• Focusing penalties in drug cases on a person's role in a trafficking organization, rather than the amount of drug involved.

• Reducing recidivism by providing behavioral health services and other rehabilitative living conditions and opportunities in prison.

• Strengthening services for crime victims and survivors by enforcing victims' rights, removing barriers to services and creating restorative justice opportunities.

"It is to ultimately think about how our systems can both hold people accountable but also offer redemption and change," Maki said.

You can read the report at counciloncj.org.

Dog gone

A dogged suburban crime-fighter - one of the first of his kind in Illinois - and his human partner are calling it a day.

Browser, the Lake County state's attorney office's electronic evidence detection dog, and cybercrime analyst Carol Gudbrandsen retired this week after years of using their rare skills to investigate crimes that leave a digital footprint.

When he joined the state's attorney's office in 2018, Browser was one of just two electronic evidence detection dogs in the state, and one of only about 30 working in the U.S.

The English Labrador used his training and heightened sense of smell to detect triphenylphosphine oxide, a chemical baked onto computer circuits to prevent devices from overheating. That compound covers circuit boards in all storage devices, including large hard drives, cellphones and microSD cards that are about 1 millimeter thick.

Those skills came into play dozens of times over the years when police were searching for small or hidden electronic devices that may contain evidence of a crime.

Gudbrandsen joined the state's attorney's office in 2010 and used her computer skills to help law enforcement investigate offenses ranging from child exploitation and murder to white-collar crimes and burglaries.

"When I first started, I used to work mainly on child exploitation cases, but now, digital forensics is used in almost every case," she said in an announcement of her retirement. "The challenge is knowing exactly what to extract from the devices."

While their work together is over, the partnership between Browser and Gudbrandsen lives on. Browser has resided with his work partner since joining the state's attorney's office and will continue to do so in retirement.

Child abuse awareness

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, and to raise awareness the Exchange Club of Wheaton, Prevent Child Abuse of Illinois and the DuPage County sheriff's office are teaming to build a pinwheel garden Saturday.

The garden will be outside the DuPage County Administration Building, 421 N. County Farm Road in Wheaton, and stay up all month to draw attention to the cause.

Prevent Child Abuse America has used pinwheels since 2008 to symbolize a happy, healthy and safe childhood, and that everyone plays a role in children's lives.

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