Empirical Assessment of the Relationship Between Jail Population Size and County-level Crime Rates in Central Pennsylvania

Abstract:

Recently, due to issues associated with overcrowding, underfunding, and the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a national push for prison downsizing. Advocates of downsizing have called for the decarceration, or removal, of non-violent offenders from penal institutions. Indeed, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in March of 2020, many correctional institutions nationally, and in Pennsylvania specifically, have reduced the size of their correctional populations by releasing non-violent offenders. Opponents of downsizing argue that such policies are a threat to public safety and will result in an increase in crimes committed within communities that downsize their prisons. Using official data, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between county-level jail population sizes and county-level crime rates, as reported in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), in Central Pennsylvania. Policy implications based on findings are discussed within.