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On the Optimum Use of Incarceration for Crime Control

Author

Listed:
  • Alfred Blumstein

    (Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

  • Daniel Nagin

    (Duke University, Durham, North Carolina)

Abstract

In recent years serious attention has been given to the potential of imprisonment to reduce crime by “general deterrence,” which discourages criminal behavior in the general population through the threat of punishment and by “incapacitation,” which involves physically separating criminals from the rest of society. Also of fundamental importance to the use of prison is evidence that suggests that the imprisonment rates (prisoners per capita) in the U.S. fluctuates only within very narrow limits. This apparent constraint suggests the need for an overall framework for reducing crime that best uses the limited resource, man-years of imprisonment. In this paper we develop a model that estimates total crime rate as a function of imprisonment policies, incorporating estimates of deterrent and incapacitative effects. Using imprisonment rate as a constraint, we develop an optimization framework to minimize crime rate and use it to explore implications of alternative incarceration policies. An illustrative example, using data from 1970, is provided.

Suggested Citation

  • Alfred Blumstein & Daniel Nagin, 1978. "On the Optimum Use of Incarceration for Crime Control," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 381-405, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:26:y:1978:i:3:p:381-405
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.26.3.381
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    Cited by:

    1. Steven N. Durlauf & Daniel S. Nagin, 2010. "The Deterrent Effect of Imprisonment," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 43-94, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Alfred Blumstein, 2002. "Crime Modeling 1," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 50(1), pages 16-24, February.
    3. P G Hancock & R Raeside, 2010. "Analysing communication in a complex service process: an application of social network analysis in the Scottish Prison Service," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(2), pages 265-274, February.
    4. Stuart Jay Deutsch & Charles J. Malmborg, 1981. "A Comparison of Sentencing Strategies Between States," Evaluation Review, , vol. 5(3), pages 307-324, June.

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