Morgan Reynolds

Imprisonment’s role in reducing crime has met increased scrutiny since the U.S. prison population reached 2 million inmates in 1999. In the following viewpoint, Morgan Reynolds argues that imprisonment reduces crime by incapacitating career criminals and deterring others from committing offenses. The drop in the crime rate in the 1990s, Reynolds claims, was a result of the booming prison population. He maintains that America’s high crime rates and high imprisonment rates do not reflect a flawed prison system, but the failure to imprison more offenders in previous years. Reynolds is an economics professor at Texas A&M University and the director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. According to Reynolds, which is a greater deterrent to crime, the certainty or severity of punishment"
2. How does...