Crime rates explode as prisons empty

 The Blaze:

Why is there a record number of criminals on the streets? Well, if they are being removed from the prisons, where else do you think they will land?

It’s not enough for Republicans to only focus on funding the police. What point is there in funding the police if prosecutors, judges, and new laws from the legislature will just let out all the repeat violent offenders? A new Bureau of Justice Statistics report easily sheds light on why there is so much rampant crime in the streets. Here are some of the key takeaways:

• The combined state and federal imprisonment rate has declined a whopping 28% since 2010, and the incarceration rate is now the lowest since 1992. Contrary to those who believe there is an over-incarceration rate among black people, the rate of decline was even sharper – 37%.
• Although the culture of leniency has been going on for a decade, it was massively accelerated by COVID jailbreak. The population went down 15% just in one year from 2019 to 2020. That is the single largest decline since records began to be kept in 1926. Nine states showed decreases of greater than 20% (New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, North Dakota, Maine, New York, Hawaii, California, and Vermont). New Jersey claimed the No. 1 spot, with nearly a one-third reduction in its entire prison population in one year, following a decade of slower declines.
• On the state level, some incarceration rates are even lower than the national aggregate. For example, the incarceration rate in New York is the lowest since 1984, and in California it’s the lowest since 1990.
• Not only were so many people released, but so many others were not sentenced and incarcerated last year. There was a 40% decrease in those initially sent to prison since 2019. That number was 66% for California and 60% for New York.
• The drop was particularly steep among those sentenced for serious crimes. The number of persons sentenced to more than one year in state or federal prison decreased from 1,379,800 in 2019 to 1,182,200 in 2020.
• State and federal correctional authorities held 352 persons age 17 or younger at year end in 2020, a 46% decline from 2019. There is your juvenile crime wave right there.

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There is a reason why prisons are needed and liberal prosecutors need to start putting the perps back behind bars again.