PDF Reconsidering the “Violent Offender”
The “violent offender” label has contributed greatly to the punitiveness of the U.S. criminal justice system. As correctional populations skyrocketed from the early 1970s to 2014, sentence length increased disproportionately for people convicted of violent crimes. This paper argues that the violent offender label poorly fits the empirical reality of violent crime, distorts notions of proportionality, fails to serve as an effective predictive tool for future violent behavior and is a serious, but often unjustified, obstacle to ending mass incarceration.
It makes the following three recommendations to policymakers: 1) curtail the use of violent offenses as a predictive tool for correctional decision-making, 2) reduce sentence lengths and time served for people with violent offenses, and 3) invest in families and communities where violent crimes are far too common.