"Crime and high rates of incarceration impose tremendous costs on society, with lasting negative effects on individuals, families, and communities. These high costs highlight the need for both effective crime-prevention strategies and smart sentencing policies, in addition to strategies for reaching at-risk youths. On May 1st, The Hamilton Project at Brookings hosted a forum and released three new papers focusing on crime and incarceration in the United States ... [Panels] discussed a new proposal by Steven Raphael of UC Berkeley and Michael Stoll of UCLA for reducing incarceration rates in the United States through sentencing reform and changes to the financial incentives facing state and local governments.
A second panel discussed a new proposal by Jens Ludwig and Anuj Shah, both of the University of Chicago, outlining a strategy for scaling out an educational program-the "Becoming a Man" (BAM) program -to help disadvantaged youths recognize high-stakes situations in which their automatic responses may lead to trouble."
The forum was comprised of three parts:
- "Welcome and Introductions" by Robert E. Rubin;
- Roundtable One: "A New Approach to Reducing Incarceration While Maintaining Low Rates of Crime" with Steven Raphael, Michael Stoll. Dean Esserman, Christine DeBerry, Daniel Nagin, and Melissa S. Kearney; and
- Roundtable Two: "A New Approach to Preventing Youth Violence and Dropout" with Jens Ludwig, Elizabeth Glazer, Robert Listenbee, Laurence Steinberg, and Jim Tankersley.
This website offers access to abstracts for the three released papers from The Hamilton Project; the full event transcript (unedited); press release and pull quotes; audio for the three parts; event photos; video for the three parts; and the three papers on crime and incarceration in the United States. The three papers are "Ten Economic Facts about Crime and Incarceration in the United States" by The Hamilton Project, "A New Approach to Reducing Incarceration While Maintaining Low Rates of Crime" by Steven Raphael and Michael Stoll, and "Think Before You Act: A New Approach to Preventing Youth Violence and Dropout" by Jens Ludwig and Anuj Shah.