How Do Drug Offenders Reduce Crime Rates

Does Imprisoning Drug Offenders Reduce Crime Rates In today’s society drug offenders are not a sparse. They are in our neighborhoods, our schools, our favorite restaurant, and quite frankly all over our community. Drug offense though might not be the only crimes that they are committing, often times these types of offenders are committing a variety of other crimes as an affect of the substance abuse. In theory, incarcerating drug offenders seems like a rational solution to diminishing crime, although it is only a temporary solution. While statistics might show some correlation between the incarceration of drug offenders and the lower crime rates, it is pertinent to remember that correlation does not mean causation. Drug offenders do deserve to be punished and incarcerated in connection with their offense, but to assume that the incarceration of drug offenders ultimately lowers crime rates is a far reach and wishful thinking at best. …show more content…
Numbers show that in fact, crime rates are lower when a high percentage of drug offenders are incarcerated. It is estimated that “the increase of drug incarceration between 1980 and 2000 is associated with a small reduction in violence and property crime of perhaps 1-3% (Kuziemkoa & Levittb, 2013). The argument in favor of the relationship is quite simple in that it is quite obvious that property and violent crime rates would go down in relation to an increased number of drug offenders sent to prison. This is simply because drug offenders are more often than not the ones committing those types of