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Notes -
There's two methods of stopping crime: deterrence (not committing a crime due to fear of getting caught) and incapacitation (not doing crimes because he's in jail). Most of the "harsh sentences don't work" arguments are based on ignoring incapacitation.
But this is exactly where it's important to distinguish between scenario (a) and (b) in my comment above.
Suppose the average criminal commits crimes at a rate of 3/year between age 20 and 35, meaning that in the absence of policing his career will consist of 45 crimes. Two methods of policing:
a. Put a lot of effort into clearances, solve 2/3 of crimes, and lock him up for a year. He commits an average of 1.5 crimes before getting locked up for a year, meaning every 1.5 years he commits 2 crimes and then spends a year in jail. He commits 10 crimes before age 35. Total crimes = num_criminals x 10, total jail time = 10 years.
b. Solve 1/3 of crimes and lock them up forever. The criminal successfully commits 3 crimes before getting caught on average. He's locked up forever and has committed 3 crimes before his 35'th birthday. Total crimes = num_criminals x 3, total jail time = 14 years.
In this scenario, for doubling clearance rates to work even as well as harsh prison sentences, it would need to cut num_criminals by 70%.
In a "few criminals, lots of crimes/criminal" scenario, even a low clearance rate results in any individual criminal eventually getting caught.
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