America’s incarceration rate is in decline

The question not even asked by the article is ... why?

The answer is likely unknowable, but I can think of several factors that tie into the plummeting birth rate:

- While the Freakanomics citation of widespread access to abortion has been debunked as a sole cause, I think it remains credible for at least a contributing factor. Fewer young people born to folks who are too poor/busy/not wanting to raise them is doubtlessly going to reduce the number of young offenders who become the prison system's regular customers their whole lives.

- Beyond just abortion, contraceptives and contraceptive education have gotten much more accessible. For all the endless whining from the right about putting condoms on cucumbers poisoning children's minds with vegetable-based erotica, as it turns out, teens have sex, as they probably have since time immemorial, and if you teach them how to do it safely and don't threaten their safety if they do, they generally will do it safely.

- Additionally, there has been a gradual ramp-up in how badly negative outcomes stack in life, and "messing up" on your path to adulthood carries higher costs than it ever has. Possibly contradicting myself, teens are having less sex than ever, as all broad forms of socializing have decreased apart from social media, which is exploding but doesn't really present opportunities to bone down. Add to it, young people are more monitored than they've ever been. When I was coming up, I had hours alone to myself to do whatever I wanted, largely wherever I wanted as long as I could get there and my parents knew (though they couldn't verify where I was). Now we have a variety of apps for digitally stalking your kids, and that's not even going into the mess of extracurricular activities, after school events, classes, study sessions, sports, etc. that modern kids get. They barely have any unmonitored time anymore.

- Another point: alternative sexuality (or the lack thereof) is more accepted than it's ever been by mainstream society, and anything that isn't man + woman is virtually guaranteed to not create unwanted pregnancy unless something truly interesting happens.

- Lastly, I would cite that even if you have a heterosexual couple who is interested in having kids, that's harder than ever. A ton of folks my age can't even afford a home, let alone one suitable for starting a family. The ones that do start families live either in or uncomfortably close to poverty, and usually in one or another variety of insecurity. The ones that can afford it often choose not to for... I mean there's so many reasons bringing kids into the world right now feels unappealing. It's a ton of work that's saddled onto 2 people in a categorically a-historic way, in an economy where two full time salaries is basically mandatory if you want to have a halfway decent standard of living, and double that for one that includes children. That's not even going into the broader state of the world, how awful the dating market is especially for women, so many reasons and factors.

Any stressed animal population stops reproduction first. I don't see why we'd think people would be any different.

From what I've read, mostly sentencing reform and less aggressive drug prosecution/more drug diversion. That and the general trend for crime to recede in wealthy, stable societies.

>how awful the dating market is especially for women

"World Ends, Women Most Affected."

It's not just law enforcement and sentencing - there are verifiable numbers for the results of certain crimes - homicides and auto theft come to mind - and most have declined precipitously.

E.g. Boston had 1,575 reports of auto theft in 2012, compared with 28,000 in 1975; Massachusetts had 242 murders in 1975, and 121 in 2012. (a 56% drop in homicide rate, as population went up 14%)

I think that demographically we might be in a trough, of new born children. Also children born to the last major cohort (the children of the baby Boomers) are just becoming tweens and young teens, or very young adults. There might be a spike in crime, in the next 10 years, as they start to mature. It helps that they are more spread out, and not born in the same few years like the Boomers were, (a more flattened and spread curve).

Very rough midpoint years; Baby Boomers 1949, Gen X 1979, Millennial 2009.

That car theft number is blowing my mind. I would have easily guessed 10x that.

Are there any aspects of the crime that make it less appealing? Electronic counter measures too good? Price of replacement parts no longer carry a premium? Too easy to get caught?

  ...about putting condoms on cucumbers poisoning children's minds with vegetable-based erotica

The Christians did invent Veggie Tales.

Consumer goods went on a 50 year deflation streak while health care, housing, and education pumped to the moon. That's its own problem, but it's hard to steal any of those three things.

> how awful the dating market is especially for women,

Don't worry, I assure you it's just as terrible on the other side of the fence.

This paper argues that electronic locks played a large role: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41284-024-00452-2

I would bet that the pervasive use of electronic records has something to do with it, too. According to this 1979 report from the Nat'l Assoc. of Attorneys General, in the 70s there were a lot of paths to retitling a stolen vehicle back then, which along with the the rise of chop shops and easier export of stolen cars, supported a large stolen-car economy: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/59904NCJRS.pdf