Nationwide crime has been declining for more than two decades.  The total crime rate has dropped by more than 40%. The violent crime rate has dropped by even more. However, just like stock market trends, trends in crime rates never move in one direction forever. It is inevitable that the crime drop will reverse itself and we will move into an era of rising, not falling, crime rates.  How should we respond?

One thing we shouldn’t do is repeat the mistakes of the past—warehousing more people in prison to prevent crime by incapacitation.  Instead we should follow the advice given by Cesare Beccaria nearly three centuries ago—“It is better to prevent crimes than punish them.” In this talk I will discuss policy options that have been proven to prevent crime with special emphasis on how police can play a key role in prevention without sacrificing civil liberties.

Daniel S. Nagin is Teresa and H. John Heinz III University Professor of Public Policy and Statistics and since January, 2006 has served as the School’s Associate Dean of Faculty. He is the 2006 recipient of the American Society of Criminology’s Edwin H Sutherland Award and in 2014 was awarded the Stockholm Prize in Criminology. He is the co-editor of Criminology and Public Policy, chaired the National Research Council’s Committee on Deterrence and the Death Penalty, and served as Deputy Secretary for Fiscal Policy and Analysis in the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue from 1981 to 1986.