USA: Crime Rates and Youth Incarceration in Texas and California Compared

Submitted by crinadmin on

[27 June 2007] - Texas and California, the nation’s two most populous states, are home to 22 percent of America’s youth. Over the last decade, these two states have taken diametrically opposite approaches to locking up juveniles.

From 1995 to 2006, Texas increased the number of youth that were incarcerated under the age of 18 by 48 percent. This was done through harsh sentencing practices that targeted non-violent, property and drug offenders.

In contrast, during the same period, California drastically reduced the total number of juveniles incarcerated in youth prisons by 75 percent —an unprecedented decline—by imprisoning only the most violent offenders.

As a result, Texas, which has 1.8 million fewer juvenile than California, now imprisons substantially more youth than California. These two radically different practices allow for a stark analysis of a long and hotly debated issue: Do higher incarceration rates reduce crime? This paper explores this crucial question.

 

pdf: http://www.crin.org/docs/CrimeRates.pdf

Organisation: 
Center on Juvenile Justice and Criminal Justice
Attachment Link: 
http://www.crin.org/docs/CrimeRates.pdf

Countries

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