The new CEA report on incarceration and the criminal justice system

It offers many interesting facts and angles (pdf here).  Here is one instructive paragraph of note:

Relative to other factors, rising prison admission rates have been the most important contributor to the increase in incarceration. Raphael and Stoll (2013b) decompose the growth in the prison population into changes in crime rates, prison admissions and time served. If criminal justice policies remained the same as they were in 1984, State imprisonment rates would have actually 20 declined by 7 percent by 2004, given falling crime rates. Instead, State prison rates increased by over 125 percent. After accounting for falling crime rates, over two-thirds of this increase was attributable to rising prison admission rates, and 14 percent to increases in time served. In Federal prisons, longer sentences and rising admissions rates have been equally important, each accounting for approximately 20 percent of the growth in the Federal prison rate that is not due to changes in crime…

That is from pp.19-20.  Here is a related post from last year.

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