KARL MENNINGER, PATRON SAINT OF THE DEINCARCERATION MOVEMENT: On this day in 1893, psychiatrist Karl Menninger was born. In his 1960s-era book The Crime of Punishment he argued that all punishment is cruel and useless and should cease. As Menninger saw it, those who asked us to spare a thought for crime victims were being “melodramatic” and “childish” and appealing only to the “unthinking.” Some saw Menninger’s kind of thinking as a bit of a joke right from the beginning. As crime rates soared over the next few decades, more and more Americans got the message.

It may well be that there are things that can be done to decrease our current incarceration rates without seriously raising crime. Some new technologies may make that possible. But, as I have written about here, I fear policy advocates are getting carried away. When urban neighborhoods are reasonably safe, its residents flourish.   When they aren’t, they don’t.