Conversations with Coleman Why Longer Prison Sentences Don’t Work
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Feb 23, 2026 Jennifer Doleac, an economist who studies crime and criminal justice and leads policy work at Arnold Ventures. She explains why longer prison terms often fail, why swifter and more certain punishment deters more than severity, how DNA databases and more police can reduce recidivism, and how policy must account for incentives and unintended consequences.
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Economics Lens Clarifies What Actually Changes Behavior
- Economists bring three key tools to crime policy: incentive analysis, causal identification, and cost-benefit evaluation.
- Jennifer Doleac explains these shape what policies we test, how we evaluate them with experiments/natural experiments, and how to allocate scarce public resources efficiently.
Certainty And Swiftness Deter More Than Long Sentences
- Short time horizons matter: many offenders heavily discount the future, so very long sentences rarely deter their present behavior.
- Doleac emphasizes swiftness and certainty of punishment increase deterrence far more than severity or longer years in prison.
Spend On Investigations Not Longer Sentences
- Reallocate spending from long prison terms to improving investigations and raising clearance rates.
- Doleac urges funding police practices and tools that increase the probability of quick detection rather than passing longer-sentence laws.
