More incarceration doesn't work

Washington Post - State-level data reinforce the idea that increases in the local prison population don't predict decreases in crime very well.

... Nationwide, the crime rate declined by 40 percent during [1994-2012], as the imprisonment rate rose by 24 percent. Notably, though, some of the states with the steepest declines in crime — New York, New Jersey, California, Maryland — actually decreased their imprisonment rates.

Meanwhile, the state that increased its imprisonment rate the most — West Virginia — actually saw a slight increase in crime. Other states that took dramatically different approaches to incarceration, like New York (which cut its incarceration rate by 24 percent) and Florida (which increased it by 31 percent) saw identical declines in crime.