1. Al Capone, The Sword of Damocles & the Police: Prisons Budget Ratio
Lawrence Sherman
Institute of Criminology
University of Cambridge

2. Al Capone Very Harmful No evidence to prove his murdering
Prosecution on tax evasion
Died in Prison

3. Average Charges for MURDER or Attempted Murder Within Two Years of Probation Start: Philadelphia
.375
High
Neither
Low
.033
.005

4. Papers
Richard Berk, Lawrence Sherman, Geoffrey Barnes, Ellen Kurtz and Lindsay Ahlman 2009 “Forecasting murder within a population of probationers and parolees: a high stakes application of statistical learning” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society) 172: 191–211
Lawrence Sherman (2011) “Al Capone, the Sword of Damocles, and the Police–Corrections Budget Ratio” Criminology & Public Policy 10:
Lawrence Sherman (2010). Less Prison, More Police, Less Crime: How Criminology Can Save the States from Bankruptcy. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice Video posted at .

5. Neither Crime nor Criminals Are All Equal in Their HARM
What does it mean to say “crime” dropped?
All crimes are not created equal
Some far more harmful than others
Yet governments publish “crime” totals
Completely unweighted by harm
Total crime down, homicides X 100
How to interpret?

6. Crime Harm Index (CHI) (Sherman, 2007)
Tool for combining elements of different weights into a single scale value
E.g., murder = 200, car theft = 5, shoplift = 1
What is 100 crimes in CHI? Example:
10 murders X = 2,000
50 car thefts X 5 =
1,000 shop thefts X 1 = 1,000
TOTAL = 3,250

7. Cut Costs, Manage Criminals
Stop summing crimes
Start weighing harms
Provide a transparent, total harm “level”
Not a confusing flood of undigested data

8. Use Crime Harm Index (CHI)
Evaluate national trends in harm levels
Compare police force areas
Make decisions about criminals
Apportion CJ costs in relation to harm prevention benefit

9. Keep It Simple? Manage less harmful offenders in communit
(key role of police)
Lock up dangerous people forever
(main role for prisons)
Keep testing value for money

10. Apply CHI to Justice CJ Act 2003 Judge must assess dangerousness
Take CHI Forecasts Into Account
Early diversion for low risk
Probation on tight license
Certainty, swiftness—not severity

11. Sword of Damocles Braggart at King’s Table Not Punished
Merely Threatened with Punishment
Curbed Behaviour

12. Percent of USA CJS Budgets: Local Police vs. Prisons

13. US: 50,000(?) Police Laid Off

15. Nieuwbeerta, Paul, Daniel Nagin and Arjan A. J. Blokland (2009)
Nieuwbeerta, Paul, Daniel Nagin and Arjan A. J. Blokland (2009). “Assessing the Impact of First-Time Imprisonment on Offenders’ Subsequent Criminal Career Development: A Matched Samples Comparison” Journal of Quantitative Criminology.

17. Which Can Prevent Crime Better?
Prisons?
Police? Probation?

18. The Politics of Early Release

19. Petrosino Campbell 2009

20. Blending Two Thinkers on Prevention
Jeremy Bentham
Sir Robert Peel

21. Bentham: Deterrence
Certainty
Celerity (speed)
Severity

22. Peel, 1829 Certainty Celerity Cessation:
--Stopping the crime in progress
Abolished death penalties
Australia?
Transportation Today
Still Possible

23. Peel’s Principles 1829 Minimum Force Necessary
Minimum Cost to Taxpayers
Test of Success: NOT punishment
BUT the demonstrable absence of crime
Prevention, not detection
Management of crime and criminals
Deter, intercept thieves, break up fights
Reserve prosecution for the very worst

24. Operation Damocles! Deferred Prosecution You are under arrest
We can charge you
Put you in Jail
But we suspend action
So you can go straight
Go to drug treatment
Get a job
Do Restorative Justice
Relocate
“Turning Point” Plan
Or-- we will prosecute

25. The Regulatory Pyramid

26. Certainty, Swiftness: the Project Hope Example
Hawaii Offender Probation Enhancement
Chronic Drug-Abusing Property Criminals
Drug-Testing as a condition
Failure COULD mean 5 years in prison
Typically failure had not been reported
5, 10, 15 times—no sanction
17th time? Or 19th? Or 13th?
Unexpected, sudden, very severe penalty

27. How Does HOPE Improve, In Theory?
Certainty—call every day, Mon-Fri
Swiftness—Immediate processing of tests
Immediate jail time
Severity Low at first
Steadily rising with repeats

28. How Does HOPE Improve, In Effects?
Randomized Controlled Trial
Prison Days 50% lower for HOPE
New Crimes 50% lower for HOPE
NIJ to replicate in multiple states

29. Risk-Based Policy: Foundation of Cost-Effectiveness
Pew Trust Report
Parole Guidelines on Release
Virginia sentencing Guidelines—risk, not desert
RAND 1982 Report on Selective Incapacitation
Idea rejected by 1986 NAS Report on Error
False positives too high for values
But prison rate has tripled
False positives are embedded in sentencing
Actuarial Risk could keep them out, not put them in

30. Police as Offender Managers
Classify Risks
Prosecute highest risk, maximum prison
Divert Lowest Risk, minimal cost
Manage for desistance
More emphasis on offender-victim future
Test specific tactics—RJ, drug treatment, even “transportation” by consent

31. Where to Start Not Hard-Core Recidivists
Diamond Districts results (Met)
But where diversion alone does best
First Offenders—or early

32. Turning Points 500 Offenders Age 70 In & out of crime
Key Turning Points
John Laub
Robert Sampson

33. Big Ones Partner (spouse) Job Change of community
Cut off ties to old friends—family!

34. Relocation Strategy: Funding Incentive, All Stages34

35. Prisoner Resettlement Re-Location “Experiment”
Whether they went back to their “hood”
Unrelated to their choice
Most US states require same community
Louisiana does not 35

36. David S. Kirk “A Natural Experiment on Residential
Change and Recidivism:
Lessons from Hurricane Katrina”
American Sociological Review 2009 36

37. Cause and Effect If re-imprisonment rates differ
“Returners” higher than “Relocaters”
Likely to be caused by relocation
Not self-selection bias
But were they unknown to police?
QUESTION: long-term effects—not 1-year
Would three years be convincing? 37

38. 3-Year Results: Brand new

39. Relocation  Less Prison?
Four-Year Re-imprisonment Rates
(Louisiana or other states)
1-Year 4-Year
Returners = 26% 65%
Relocators = 11% 35%
1-year Difference = 15% raw, 58% relative
3-year Difference = 30% raw, 54% relative 39

40. Further the Better One Percent Less Re-Imprisonment
For every ten miles they moved from their old neighbourhood, at one year out,
One Percent Less
Re-Imprisonment 40

41. Managing Offenders in Community: Summary
Regulatory Pyramid
Escalating control, sanctions
Low to moderate severity
But also individual needs, crime by crime:
--restorative justice
--relocation
--drug treatment
--curfews
--not associating with other offenders

42. “Turning Point Policing” (funded by Monument Trust)
Develop Risk Assessment Tool UK
Develop Damocles Tactics
Divert sample of first offenders to Damocles
Then test overall forecast-based triage

43. Randomized Controlled Trial RCT: COMPARISON or NET difference

44. Research & Development
British Society for Evidence-Based Policing
Testing “rehabilitative policing” or “Offender Desistance Policing (ODP) or “Turning Point Policing”
Managing desistance as a lifelong task
Comprehensive studies of what works

45. Jerry Lee Centre of Experimental Criminology University of Cambridge
Thank You
Lawrence W. Sherman
Jerry Lee Centre of Experimental Criminology
University of Cambridge