“Does Decriminalization Work?”: Really Solid Interview at Slate

asking the right questions:

After three decades of watching the incarceration rate climb to unprecedented heights, Americans seem ready to usher in a new era of leniency. Some legislators are pushing to eliminate mandatory sentencing minimums for nonviolent drug offenders. Others are calling for the federal prison population to be slashed by letting some prisoners out early. Others still are advocating for incarcerated juveniles to be treated less harshly. Meanwhile, states all over the country are decriminalizing certain misdemeanor offenses so that people who are caught doing illegal but not-actually-very-bad things are punished less severely than they used to be.

On the surface, decriminalization of petty offenses seems like an approach that will make our criminal justice system less punitive and less expensive. But according to Alexandra Natapoff, an expert on the role of misdemeanors in the criminal justice system at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, decriminalization comes with serious unintended consequences—and does not actually make the system more lenient.

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