Prisons vs. Social programs: Experts examine key issues in justice

Is our money better spent locking up criminals or trying to rehabilitate them through social programs? And do existing social programs alter behavior in ways that reduce crime? National experts in criminal justice policy will examine these questions at an upcoming UW–Madison symposium.

The Research Symposium on Public Policy and Youth Crime in the United States is scheduled Friday, Feb. 19, from 3-5 p.m., 8417 Social Science Building.

The event kicks off a series sponsored by the Institute for Research on Poverty, which plans to bring outstanding scholars from other campuses together with IRP researchers to discuss poverty-related policy issues. The inaugural symposium features three distinguished scholars in the area of criminal justice policy:

• Stanford Law School’s John Donohue will examine the effectiveness of anti-crime spending in his lecture, “Allocating Resources among Prisons and Social Programs in the Battle against Crime.” Donohue, a John A. Wilson Distinguished Faculty Scholar and a research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research, specializes in evaluating public policy.
• University of Chicago’s Steven Levitt will discuss the basic question, “Does Criminal Behavior Respond to Punishment?” Levitt, associate professor of economics and a research fellow for the American Bar Association, has focused his research on measuring the impact of the criminal justice system on behavior.
• Carnegie Mellon University’s Daniel Nagin will conduct a discussion of the two presentations. He is Teresa and John Heinz III Professor of Public Policy and Management and research area program director for the National Consortium on Violence Research. Nagin wrote a widely cited National Academy of Sciences report estimating the effects of criminal sanctions on the crime rate.