A Revolving Door of Predators
America’s growing sense of danger is often discussed as if it were a mystery -- something caused by “complex social forces” that no one can quite identify, much less change. But what is happening is not mysterious at all. A society that tolerates predatory behavior will get more of it. Criminals respond to incentives as reliably as everyone else does.
If the odds of punishment and the cost of punishment do not outweigh the benefits of crime for a would-be predator, there is no deterrence. It becomes a simple risk-reward calculation.
One of the most stubborn facts in modern criminal justice is that repeat offending is not just an occasional occurrence. It is the norm. The Bureau of Justice Statistics tracked state prisoners released in 2005 and found that 68% were arrested again within three years, 79% within six years, and 83% within nine years. Over that nine-year period, those 401,288 released prisoners racked up nearly two million arrests -- about five arrests per released prisoner.
That is not a “few bad apples.” That is a revolving door.
A newer BJS study of prisoners released in 2012 across 34 states found similarly grim patterns: 62% arrested within three years and 71% within five years, with 46% returning to prison within five years either for a new sentence or for supervision violations.
These numbers do not mean that every offender is irredeemable. They mean something more basic: the system is routinely returning high-risk people to the public. Although clearly failing to protect the public, those responsible often congratulate themselves for being “smart,” “humane,” or “evidence-based.”
The question then becomes: who is making the choices that turn rampant recidivism from a warning sign into a business model?
Start with prosecutors. Prosecutors are not merely lawyers; they are gatekeepers. They decide whether to charge, what to charge, whether to stack charges, whether to bargain down violent conduct into something less serious, and whether to seek enhancements for repeat offenders. In theory, they are ministers of justice. In practice, they operate under incentives that have little to do with the safety of ordinary people.
A prosecutor who insists on serious charges for violent repeat offenders inherits hard work, courtroom risk, political criticism, and the possibility of a trial loss. A prosecutor who pleads cases down can claim “efficiency,” produce impressive conviction statistics, and clear a docket -- often at a discount paid by a future victim.
Then come judges, who have enormous discretion in sentencing, diversion, probation, and release decisions. The public is told that judges are correcting for “over-incarceration” or that they are applying “individualized justice.” But individualized justice can become individualized excuses -- where the life and limb of the innocent are treated as a secondary concern, while the biography of the offender becomes the main event.
The deeper problem is cultural. When a society explains violence as if it were a weather pattern -- something that simply happens -- then the people who can stop it feel less obligation to do so. Accountability becomes optional. Predation becomes a “cry for help.” And the victims are told, in effect, that their suffering is unfortunate but unavoidable.
Nowhere is this softer, more dishonest thinking clearer than in how we talk about “life sentences.” The phrase suggests finality. It suggests that the most dangerous people are removed permanently from the streets. In reality, “life” often means “eligible for a hearing” after a set number of years, with release hinging on shifting political winds, administrative boards, and legal changes.
Consider how “life” is described in California’s own parole framework: many indeterminate terms are explicitly “life” sentences with the possibility of parole, such as “25 years-to-life.” The punishment is structured so that a person convicted of grave violence may be entitled to ask for release after a minimum term. California also notes that “lifers” can become eligible through special tracks such as youth-offender or elderly parole processes. More often than not, a life term is more for public consumption than actual policy.
At the federal level, parole was prospectively abolished for most cases after the Sentencing Reform Act era, but “time served” is still not identical to the sentence imposed because offenders can earn good-time credit that reduces time behind bars. And historically, even federal “life” cases have sometimes ended in release: a Bureau of Justice Statistics time-served report found that, between 1986 and 1997, federal offenders committed for life were released on parole after about 16 years in prison.
If “life” can mean “a hearing in a couple of decades,” then the public has been sold a comforting fantasy rather than a protective policy.
Notice what recidivism data implies about our current posture. When BJS tells us that roughly seven in ten released prisoners are rearrested within five years, it is not simply describing individual failure. It is describing institutional design. A system that repeatedly releases people who repeatedly reoffend is not merely making mistakes. It is operating as built -- pushing risk outward onto the public because internal actors (prosecutors, judges, administrators) bear little personal cost when the gamble goes wrong.
And it goes wrong in the most lopsided way imaginable: the benefits of leniency accrue to the decision-makers’ reputations and caseloads, while the costs are paid by nameless victims who did not get a vote in the courtroom.
A serious society would respond in three ways.
First, stop treating violent recidivism as an acceptable externality. Prosecutors should default to charging violent conduct as violent conduct -- without laundering it into lesser categories for convenience. Repeat violent offenders should face sentencing that reflects demonstrated risk, not optimistic storytelling.
Second, judicial discretion should be tethered to public safety outcomes, not just good intentions. When a judge repeatedly grants leniency to defendants who reoffend violently, that is not “compassion.” It is professional negligence in a robe.
Third, honesty in sentencing language must return. If a jurisdiction intends to allow parole hearings after 15, 20, or 25 years, then stop calling it “life” in the way ordinary people understand the word. The public cannot evaluate policy when policy is marketed through euphemism.
The most dangerous myth in criminal justice is that we can be “soft” on predators without being “hard” on the innocent. We cannot. Every reduction in consequences for violent behavior is an increase in consequences for someone else -- someone who will be assaulted, robbed, maimed, or killed, and who will then be treated as collateral damage in a moral drama centered on the offender.
When a society chooses to tolerate violent behavior, it does not abolish violence. It reallocates it -- away from criminals and toward law-abiding people. And that is what an increasingly unsafe America looks like: not chaos out of nowhere, but predation subsidized by leniency, enabled by prosecutors and judges who face fewer consequences than the predators they keep putting back on the streets.
If the odds of punishment and the cost of punishment do not outweigh the benefits of crime for a would-be predator, there is no deterrence. It becomes a simple risk-reward calculation.
One of the most stubborn facts in modern criminal justice is that repeat offending is not just an occasional occurrence. It is the norm. The Bureau of Justice Statistics tracked state prisoners released in 2005 and found that 68% were arrested again within three years, 79% within six years, and 83% within nine years. Over that nine-year period, those 401,288 released prisoners racked up nearly two million arrests -- about five arrests per released prisoner.
That is not a “few bad apples.” That is a revolving door.
A newer BJS study of prisoners released in 2012 across 34 states found similarly grim patterns: 62% arrested within three years and 71% within five years, with 46% returning to prison within five years either for a new sentence or for supervision violations.
These numbers do not mean that every offender is irredeemable. They mean something more basic: the system is routinely returning high-risk people to the public. Although clearly failing to protect the public, those responsible often congratulate themselves for being “smart,” “humane,” or “evidence-based.”
The question then becomes: who is making the choices that turn rampant recidivism from a warning sign into a business model?
Start with prosecutors. Prosecutors are not merely lawyers; they are gatekeepers. They decide whether to charge, what to charge, whether to stack charges, whether to bargain down violent conduct into something less serious, and whether to seek enhancements for repeat offenders. In theory, they are ministers of justice. In practice, they operate under incentives that have little to do with the safety of ordinary people.
A prosecutor who insists on serious charges for violent repeat offenders inherits hard work, courtroom risk, political criticism, and the possibility of a trial loss. A prosecutor who pleads cases down can claim “efficiency,” produce impressive conviction statistics, and clear a docket -- often at a discount paid by a future victim.
Then come judges, who have enormous discretion in sentencing, diversion, probation, and release decisions. The public is told that judges are correcting for “over-incarceration” or that they are applying “individualized justice.” But individualized justice can become individualized excuses -- where the life and limb of the innocent are treated as a secondary concern, while the biography of the offender becomes the main event.
The deeper problem is cultural. When a society explains violence as if it were a weather pattern -- something that simply happens -- then the people who can stop it feel less obligation to do so. Accountability becomes optional. Predation becomes a “cry for help.” And the victims are told, in effect, that their suffering is unfortunate but unavoidable.
Nowhere is this softer, more dishonest thinking clearer than in how we talk about “life sentences.” The phrase suggests finality. It suggests that the most dangerous people are removed permanently from the streets. In reality, “life” often means “eligible for a hearing” after a set number of years, with release hinging on shifting political winds, administrative boards, and legal changes.
Consider how “life” is described in California’s own parole framework: many indeterminate terms are explicitly “life” sentences with the possibility of parole, such as “25 years-to-life.” The punishment is structured so that a person convicted of grave violence may be entitled to ask for release after a minimum term. California also notes that “lifers” can become eligible through special tracks such as youth-offender or elderly parole processes. More often than not, a life term is more for public consumption than actual policy.
At the federal level, parole was prospectively abolished for most cases after the Sentencing Reform Act era, but “time served” is still not identical to the sentence imposed because offenders can earn good-time credit that reduces time behind bars. And historically, even federal “life” cases have sometimes ended in release: a Bureau of Justice Statistics time-served report found that, between 1986 and 1997, federal offenders committed for life were released on parole after about 16 years in prison.
If “life” can mean “a hearing in a couple of decades,” then the public has been sold a comforting fantasy rather than a protective policy.
Notice what recidivism data implies about our current posture. When BJS tells us that roughly seven in ten released prisoners are rearrested within five years, it is not simply describing individual failure. It is describing institutional design. A system that repeatedly releases people who repeatedly reoffend is not merely making mistakes. It is operating as built -- pushing risk outward onto the public because internal actors (prosecutors, judges, administrators) bear little personal cost when the gamble goes wrong.
And it goes wrong in the most lopsided way imaginable: the benefits of leniency accrue to the decision-makers’ reputations and caseloads, while the costs are paid by nameless victims who did not get a vote in the courtroom.
A serious society would respond in three ways.
First, stop treating violent recidivism as an acceptable externality. Prosecutors should default to charging violent conduct as violent conduct -- without laundering it into lesser categories for convenience. Repeat violent offenders should face sentencing that reflects demonstrated risk, not optimistic storytelling.
Second, judicial discretion should be tethered to public safety outcomes, not just good intentions. When a judge repeatedly grants leniency to defendants who reoffend violently, that is not “compassion.” It is professional negligence in a robe.
Third, honesty in sentencing language must return. If a jurisdiction intends to allow parole hearings after 15, 20, or 25 years, then stop calling it “life” in the way ordinary people understand the word. The public cannot evaluate policy when policy is marketed through euphemism.
The most dangerous myth in criminal justice is that we can be “soft” on predators without being “hard” on the innocent. We cannot. Every reduction in consequences for violent behavior is an increase in consequences for someone else -- someone who will be assaulted, robbed, maimed, or killed, and who will then be treated as collateral damage in a moral drama centered on the offender.
When a society chooses to tolerate violent behavior, it does not abolish violence. It reallocates it -- away from criminals and toward law-abiding people. And that is what an increasingly unsafe America looks like: not chaos out of nowhere, but predation subsidized by leniency, enabled by prosecutors and judges who face fewer consequences than the predators they keep putting back on the streets.
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