As prison crowding worsens, many public officials are embracing alternatives to incarceration, such as electronic home monitoring, boot camps, and intensive supervised probation. Although those alternatives have their place, their benefits have frequently been overstated.
The most effective reform would be to return prisons to their primary mission of incapacitating violent criminals. Revision or repeal of mandatory minimum sentences for consensual offenses, tighter parole standards, and tougher laws aimed at repeat violent offenders can help the state and federal criminal justice systems get back to their basic duty: protecting innocent people from force and fraud.