SJC Exchange Library

The Prison Policy Initiative released a new report in April 2020. In "Reforms Without Results," we present a concise, rigorous review of the existing research on violent crime, in order to demonstrate why people convicted of violence need to be included in state criminal justice reforms.

The report is structured around six major reasons why long prison sentences are an ineffective response to violent crime, and a section explaining why states should invest in alternatives to incarceration and violence prevention instead of more long sentences.

Our report also includes an interactive U.S. map, showing which recent state criminal justice reform laws have excluded people convicted of violent offenses. (The map isn't an exhaustive list of such laws, but it is, to our knowledge, the most comprehensive list yet published anywhere.)