Project for Opportunity and Safety

Even violent crime victims say our prisons are making crime worse

A first-of-its-kind national survey finds that victims of crime say they want to see shorter prison sentences, less spending on prisons and a greater focus on the rehabilitation of criminals.

The survey, conducted in April and released Thursday by the Alliance for Safety and Justice, a criminal justice reform group, polled the attitudes and beliefs of more 800 crime victims pooled from a nationally representative sample of over 3,000 respondents. People were classified as crime victims if they reported being victimized in a violent or property crime any time in the past 10 years.

“Perhaps to the surprise of some, the National Survey on Victims’ Views found that the overwhelming majority of crime victims believe that the criminal justice system relies too heavily on incarceration, and strongly prefer investments in treatment and prevention to more spending on prisons and jails,” according to the report.

By two-to-one, victims said the criminal justice system should focus more on rehabilitating people who commit crimes, as opposed to punishing them. By similar margins, the victims preferred shorter prison sentences over keeping criminals incarcerated “as long as possible.”

[Poor white kids are less likely to go to prison than rich black kids]

These findings mirror what other polls have shown on general public attitudes toward prison. A 2012 survey by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 84 percent of the public, including strong majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, agreed that money should be shifted from locking up nonviolent inmates to alternative programs, like probation and parole.

More recent surveys have uncovered overwhelming support for eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing requirements for federal crimes.

But congressional efforts to implement policies like these have often been stymied by “tough-on-crime” senators, including Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who are skeptical of many reform efforts. They often cite the experiences of crime victims and their families in their arguments against reform.