Much of the discussion surrounding the size of the U.S. prison population fails to take into account the role of crime rates. Research has found that certain policies lead to harsher punishments for crimes and that these policies can vary between states. A key example is the use of strict sentencing laws and prosecutors’ growing tendency to seek felony charges for crimes, both of which have been used to explain the massive growth in the number of American prisoners over the past several decades.

Underlying all of this is the idea that certain policies are responsible for high rates of imprisonment, meaning that some states are more punitive than others. But we haven’t been able to measure how exactly this varies between states and what is responsible for the change. A new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts attempts to solve this dilemma. Researchers at Pew created a new calculation called the punishment rate, which looks at the connection between crime rates and incarceration levels to determine which states tend to punish criminals more than others based on the frequency and severity of crime.

Read More: The Punishment Rate: A New Way to Look at the U.S. Prison System

The Pew Charitable Trusts study ranks states based on their punishment rates to see which are the most punitive. The researchers found that as incarceration rates rose dramatically between 1983 and 2013, so too did punishment rates but that increase varied widely among  states.

The map below shows the Pew Charitable Trusts’ calculations for the change in punishment rates between 1983 and 2013. Darker red colors indicate a greater positive change.

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As the map indicates, Colorado experienced the largest change in its punishment rate between 1983 and 2013, going up 417 percent over the 30-year period. While all states saw their punishment rates increase over this period the increases were more modest in some–in states like North and South Carolina the punishment rate went up by less than 20 percent.

It’s important to note that the punishment rate measure does have its drawbacks, most notably the fact that it can’t account for drug-related imprisonment in its crime rate weighting–meaning that states with strict drug laws but low levels of other crimes are rated as more punitive because such crimes aren’t accounted for in the crime rate statistics. This is because the FBI data used to measure crime rates does not track every crime that can be punished with jail time. The researchers acknowledge this but argue that the measurement still provides insight into the larger trends at play and will hopefully prompt states to take a closer at whether their policies lead to excessive punishment for certain crimes.

While the map above highlights the states that saw the largest changes in their punishment rates, it’s also interesting to look at where each state currently stands. Pew Charitable Trusts ranks each state based on its punishment rate in 2013, the most recent year with the necessary data available. See the chart below for the full rankings by state.

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When it comes to the rankings, most states with high punishment rates also have high incarceration rates, meaning that the imprisonment rate is often a good way to determine how punitive many states are. However, the researchers did find several outliers. In their report, the researchers find 17 states whose punishment rate ranking differs from their incarceration rate ranking by more than 10 spots, illustrating a punishment mismatch. They conclude:

Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming each ranked much higher in their punishment rates than in their imprisonment rates. In other words, these states punished crime significantly more than their imprisonment rates show. The opposite was true for Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Nevada, and New Mexico.

These findings show that simply looking at the incarceration rates does not provide the full picture when it comes to how punitive a state is. A state may have a high rate of incarceration, but that might also be related to relatively high levels of serious crime. Looking at punishment rates help us understand which states have policies that tend to be more punitive, and hopefully, this will lead policymakers to determine whether such punishments are truly appropriate.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Which States are the Most Punitive When it Comes to Crime? appeared first on Law Street.

Most people know that the prison population in the United States has grown dramatically over the past several decades. While it’s true that the number of people in U.S. prisons has grown significantly, we don’t have a concrete understanding of how that growth compares to changes in crime rates–are more people sent to prison because there was more crime or did we start punishing crime more? The Pew Charitable Trusts attempts to fill that gap with its punishment rate calculation, which provides some interesting details about how punishment varies over time and between states.

According to the Public Safety Performance Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts, the imprisonment rate increased by 149 percent between 1983 and 2013 while the punishment rate increased by 165 percent for the United States as a whole. In its research, Pew noticed that all states became more punitive from 1983 to 2013, but the changes varied widely among states.

With its new punishment rate measurement, Pew sought to look at the prison population relative to both the frequency and severity of crime in each state. Doing so helps provide a better understanding of how the incarceration rate changed relative to the prevalence of serious crime. Looking at imprisonment rates in the context of crime rates also helps illustrate differences in how states punish crime and whether certain states are more punitive than others.

Based on the report’s findings, Mississippi’s punishment rate of 818  in 2013 was the highest among all of the states and significantly greater than the national average, which was 477 that year. On the other side of the spectrum is Maine, which had a punishment rate of just 231. In the 30-year period that the researchers analyzed, Colorado experienced the largest increase in its punishment rate, going up 417 percent between 1983 and 2013.

For a full breakdown of the report’s findings and a look at each state’s ranking, you can read more here.

The researchers looked at instances of violent crime using data from the FBI’s uniform crime reporting program for all seven Part I offenses–murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. They then weighed each crime according to its severity, which was determined by the average length of a prison sentence for each crime.

In the end, the authors were able to determine which states were the most punitive based on how many people they imprisoned in relation to the frequency and severity of crime. A state with a relatively low rate of serious crime but a high prison population would have a high punishment rate, indicating that it is more punitive than other states.

While the Pew Charitable Trusts report provides some much-needed context to discussions of the U.S. prison system, it’s important to note that the measure is still far from perfect. In his thoughtful critique of Pew’s research, Tom Meagher at the Marshall Project notes that the punishment rate metric uses the best available information, but its limitations highlight the inherent challenges in measuring the criminal justice system.

Arguably the most significant gap in the measurement is the difficulty that the model has taking drug offenses into account. Drug crimes have been one of the largest contributors to the growth in the prison population, but because they are not tracked by the FBI’s uniform crime reporting system the weighting model cannot take them into account.

In the brief on the punishment rate, the researchers address the issue of drug crime and other offenses not tracked by the FBI, noting:

Although the imprisonment rate counts drug offenders—who make up nearly a fifth of the state prison population—drug crimes are not counted among the FBI’s Part I offenses, so the severity-weighted crime rate does not include them.

Pew acknowledges these drawbacks but argues that the punishment rate can still provide important context when looking at the criminal justice system. While there are imperfections in the data and limitations in terms of what the measurement can tell us, looking at punishment rates and how they vary across states can help understand the way in which prisons are utilized in the criminal justice system.

The report also doesn’t get into why exactly both incarceration and punishment rates increased over the 30-year period, but it does point to existing research that explains, at least in part, the trend. The authors note that changes in policies, rather than crime rates, largely explain the imprisonment growth. Ultimately they conclude, “States that imprison a large share of their residents, for example, can have a high crime rate or a low one; the same is true for states that lock up a small proportion of their populations.” While the report may not tell people which policies are responsible for potentially unnecessary levels of punishment, it may prompt states to start looking at the effects of their criminal justice decisions.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Punishment Rate: A New Way to Look at the U.S. Prison System appeared first on Law Street.