More on U.S. Crime and Incarceration

For more on U.S. crime, criminal law enforcement, and incarceration practices (with excellent charts), see Ten Economic Facts about Crime and Incarceration in the United States (Melissa S. Kearney, Benjamin H. Harris, Elisa Jácome, and Lucie Parker; Brookings Inst. 2014). The "ten facts" that Kearney et al. describe are:

1. Crime rates have steadily declined over the past twenty-five years.
2. Low-income individuals are more likely than higher-income individuals to be victims of crime.
3. The majority of criminal offenders are younger than age thirty.
4. Disadvantaged youths engage in riskier criminal behavior.
5. Federal and state policies have driven up the incarceration rate over the past thirty years.
6. The U.S. incarceration rate is more than six times that of the typical OECD nation.
7. There is nearly a 70 percent chance that an African American man without a high school diploma will be imprisoned by his mid-thirties.
8. Per capita expenditures on corrections more than tripled over the past thirty years.
9. By their fourteenth birthday, African American children whose fathers do not have a high school diploma are more likely than not to see their fathers incarcerated.
10. Juvenile incarceration can have lasting impacts on a young person’s future.