Jackson Free Press

Willie Jerome Manning and Michelle Byrom were the last two people the state of Mississippi attempted to execute.

In each case, after the condemned prisoners seemed to exhaust their appeals in state and federal court, the attorney general's office requested a date to carry out the execution at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. And in each case, the state Supreme Court found enough constitutional issues, including possible prosecutorial wrongdoing, to issue stays of execution and order for both to receive new trials.

Until the state tried to execute Manning, Mississippi had the reputation as one of the toughest-on-crime states in the U.S. In 2012, when Mississippi executed six prisoners, the last coming that June with Gary Carl Simmons, Mississippi ranked second among the states for the death-penalty rate. At the same time, Mississippi trails on Louisiana for overall rate of imprisonment.

Belying these trends of being hard on criminals was another trend: a steadily declining crime rate in Mississippi and around the nation. A new report from the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice concludes that crime deterrents on which law-enforcement officials and policymakers have leaned for decades have had no significant effect on declining crime rates.

The report contains three main findings. First, its authors write that increased incarceration has a negligible crime-control benefit—only about 6 percent. As evidence, researchers cite prison population reductions in California, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Texas that have taken place as crime continued to fall.

The findings do not surprise Andre de Gruy, who directs Mississippi's Office of the State Public Defender. For a long time, Mississippi was going in the wrong direction, he argues.

"We were locking up too many of the wrong people," de Gruy said.

Last year, Mississippi passed a sweeping prison-reform bill designed to keep low-level minor drug offenders out of prison. Currently, lawmakers are considering several amendments to that law that would increase certain penalties and sentences.

But the Brennan Center finds that today, crime rates are half what they were in 1991. In Jackson, for example, information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation show Jackson had a violent crime rate of 1,204 per 100,000 residents in 1991.

As of 2012, the most recent year for FBI data, Mississippi's capital had a violent crime rate of 948 per 100,000 people.

"What was once seen as a plague, especially in urban areas, is now at least manageable in most places. Rarely has there been such a rapid change in mass behavior.

This observation begs two central questions: Why has crime fallen? And to what degree is incarceration, or other criminal justice policy, responsible?" authors write.

"Social scientists and policy experts have searched for answers. Various explanations have been offered: expanded police forces, an aging population, employment rates, and even legalized abortion. Most likely, there is no one cause for such widespread, dramatic change. Many factors are responsible."

In the meantime, local, state and federal governments have spent $80 billion each year on crime reduction, including more police and bigger jails and prisons.

However, tools such as CompStat, a computerized targeting tool that has grown in popularity and are used by departments including Jackson Police Department, played a role in bringing down crime anywhere from 5 to 15 percent decrease in crime in those cities that introduced it.

Additionally, social, economic, and environmental factors also played a role in the crime drop. They include an aging population, positive changes in income, decreased alcohol consumption, increased consumer confidence and even inflation.

De Gruy adds that the introduction of alternative programs such as drug courts, which Mississippi introduced 25 years ago, and mental health courts, which are newer but growing in use around the state, are helping reduce crime.

"I don't think thinks it's a coincidence," de Gruy said. "So much crime is tied to drug addiction and drug abuse. When you reduce that number you have to start reducing crime."