AILSA CHANG, HOST:
For much of modern history, the U.S. has held the dubious distinction of incarcerating more people than any other democracy, the number peaking at a staggering 1.6 million people behind bars in 2009. But what if I told you that within the next decade, that number could drop to just 600,000? That's right, a full million fewer people in state and federal prisons than at the peak a decade and a half ago. This projection comes from Keith Humphreys, who introduced this idea in a recent piece for The Atlantic. Humphreys is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University and joins us now. Welcome.
KEITH HUMPHREYS: Very glad to be on the show.
CHANG: So what would you say are the main factors driving the drop in incarceration rates that you project over the next decade?
HUMPHREYS: One thing is - context for people to know is there's a difference between jails and prisons, and I'm...
CHANG: Yes.
HUMPHREYS: ...Talking about prisons. So jails are - cities and counties run them, and if you go into a jail, you can figure out what went wrong last night or last week. But when you go into prisons, you're really looking into the past. You're meeting people who have been sentenced five, 10, 25 years ago and maybe are on their second or third time in prison. So prisons don't change until long after the crime and punishment situation has changed. And what's going on now is after, you know, a period of very intense crime and very intense imprisonment in the '70s and '80s, that population is now aging out. And since that time, thankfully, crime has dropped a lot in the '90s and the aughts up to the present, and young people are not entering prison.
CHANG: And you note that one reason incarceration rates are projected to fall is because the U.S. population is aging, including those who are already in prison. Can you talk about, like, how old on average are people who remain in prison today for crimes they committed as juveniles or in their early 20s?
HUMPHREYS: The imprisonment rate for men who are senior citizens is more than double that for men who are 18 and 19...
CHANG: Wow.
HUMPHREYS: ...Which we think of as sort of the peak years when people are initiating crime.
CHANG: Right.
HUMPHREYS: So we've never had so many 50-, 60-, 70- and 80-year-olds in prison before. Over the next decade, some will pass away, others will be discharged, and they will probably not commit crime again 'cause the one really robust predictor of desisting from crime is getting old. That will reduce the prison population on the back end. Meanwhile, on the front end, crimes collapses (ph) in the '90s. Juvenile arrests have dropped 80%.
CHANG: Yeah. Can we talk about that? Because that one graph grabbed me in your piece. It was showing the rate of juvenile imprisonment in 2007 versus in 2022, and the plummet was staggering. What do you credit for that huge drop in juvenile imprisonment?
HUMPHREYS: In the, you know, '70s and '80s, crime is really booming. Police get overwhelmed, so it's more likely that you will get away with it, and that tempts more people into crime. Well as, you know, crime finally peaks - violent crime peaks in 1991, it starts to go down, you get the virtuous cycle in the other direction. Fewer people are committing crime, so I think, OK, that's not something, you know, people do. My friends don't do. Second, there's the ratio of police to criminals is more favorable. You're more likely to get in trouble, and that deters people. And then the other thing is, generations are getting smaller. Starting in '95, juvenile arrests are dropping, and they drop for a quarter century, down 80% - eight-zero.
CHANG: Wow. Just incredible.
HUMPHREYS: So that is - yeah, it's such good news.
CHANG: Well, if we really do reach a bottoming-out in incarceration rates in this country, as you project, what do you think a snapshot of the past 10 to 20 years reveals about our criminal justice policies and maybe our values as a country?
HUMPHREYS: Yeah. I mean, multiple things. In the one hand, you can always say there is this basic contradiction. We're the land of the free, and we are the world's biggest jailer, right? And so that doesn't speak well for our moral consistency, I would say. On the other hand, we do clearly respond to changes. You know, most of the calls around what to do in criminal justice has been towards, you know, reducing prisons, reducing sentences, alternatives to incarceration as crime has gone down. That has made a difference.
Another important point is, you know, these young folks are the most diverse generation we've had in this country ever. And, you know, in the '80s and '90s, there was a lot of projection forward. I think it was sort of white anxiety of, you know, all these diverse - all these kids who aren't white, they're going to be trouble. You know, there's going to be more and more crime. Completely opposite of the truth. Great kids. You know, we've hardly had a better-behaved generation. So those things are all, you know, more encouraging. And as I said in the piece, I think it's going to get even better in the years ahead.
CHANG: Good news. Thank you so much for delivering that. Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, thank you so much for joining us today.
HUMPHREYS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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