The Economist: Locking Up More People Does Not Reduce Crime
"David Roodman, an economist working for the Open Philanthropy Project, has recently carried out an exhaustive review, replication and analysis of papers and articles on the impact of locking people up in America. The five word summary of his work might be: America has a sentencing problem. … He concludes that "the best estimate of the impact of additional incarceration on crime in the United States today is zero"—there is at least as much evidence suggesting that decarceration reduces crime as increases it."