California’s Radical De-Incarceration Experiment

While large-scale de-incarceration of youth and low-level adult offenders in favor of alternative strategies may contribute to long-term benefits, the size of California’s crime decrease, especially among youth, suggests much larger forces are at work. That locking up lots of younger and lesser offenders is not vital to public safety today opens up discussion beyond the simplistic debates of the past surrounding get-tough measures and sentencing reform.