When talking about crime and alternatives to incarceration, we often end up talking about particular instances of crime and what to do with that particular person.
Concern would be on things like time horizons: many of the prevention and early intervention stuff is cost-effective, but the costs are now and the benefits are later. That doesn't work as well for elected officials thinking about the next election, or public pressure on crime today.
Thank you for the link! And yes, very solid point on time horizons, though I think the timelines are shorter than perhaps you are imagining here. For example, there's a very immediate relationship between "loss of funding for summer youth programs" and "tons of violence in the summer."
Totally - didn't mean to insinuate there are *no* good, short-term options, just that many of them tend to be longer-term (which, from a cost-effectiveness perspective, to be clear, is a-okay!). Legislators et al are pitched incessantly on things that require up-front funding that *promises* to return down-stream savings, and I think they have reason to be skeptical.
Big fan of this in general, and would point to orgs like WSIPP that pioneered some of this pragmatic reframing almost two decades ago. See., e.g., https://www.wsipp.wa.gov/ReportFile/952/Wsipp_Evidence-Based-Public-Policy-Options-to-Reduce-Future-Prison-Construction-Criminal-Justice-Costs-and-Crime-Rates_Full-Report.pdf
Concern would be on things like time horizons: many of the prevention and early intervention stuff is cost-effective, but the costs are now and the benefits are later. That doesn't work as well for elected officials thinking about the next election, or public pressure on crime today.
Thank you for the link! And yes, very solid point on time horizons, though I think the timelines are shorter than perhaps you are imagining here. For example, there's a very immediate relationship between "loss of funding for summer youth programs" and "tons of violence in the summer."
Totally - didn't mean to insinuate there are *no* good, short-term options, just that many of them tend to be longer-term (which, from a cost-effectiveness perspective, to be clear, is a-okay!). Legislators et al are pitched incessantly on things that require up-front funding that *promises* to return down-stream savings, and I think they have reason to be skeptical.