Despite ongoing efforts in some states to reduce the prison population, the U.S. remains in a state of hyper-incarceration. Some estimate a current incarceration rate of between 600 to 700 people per 100,000, according to a Vanderbilt Law School article by Nate Luce. Returning to a preventive justice approach may reduce the U.S. incarceration rate, noted the article.

San Quentin Rehabilitation Center resident Tony Chavez, 56, recalls when incarceration rates started to climb during President Ronald Reagan’s tough-on-crime years of the 1980s.

“I remember when Nancy Reagan initiated the ‘Just so no to drugs’ campaign and everybody was getting locked up,” Chavez said.

It was during that period that the current, retributive, desert-based model of punishment emerged, one focused on the offender’s convictions, including previous crimes. Luce refers to this approach as “punishing the crime, not the criminal.” Some of its features included the ideology of mandatory minimum sentences and the Three-Strike Law.

The resulting increase in punitive sentencing drove hyper-incarceration, according to Christopher Slobogin, Director of the Criminal Justice Program at Vanderbilt. According to the 2025 World Almanac Book of Facts, the violent crime incarceration rate in the U.S. in 1991 rose to a historic high of “758 per 100,000 populations.”

“There are dozens of reasons for this increase in punitiveness, but a key one is the move toward desert-based sentencing,” Slobogin wrote.

Before hyper-incarceration, about 50 years ago, the criminal justice system’s primary goal was preventative justice, and it used an indeterminate approach to sentencing that focused on management and risk assessment. That approach is known as “punishing the criminal, not the crime,” according to Luce.

But by the 1970s, naysayers challenged that model, basing their challenge on criticism of what were then inaccurate recidivism rate predictions, weak rehabilitation programs, and bad outcomes from decisions of incompetent parole boards.

Slobogin argues that a revamped preventive justice approach, one that incorporates retributive factors, can address those concerns. In his book, “Rehabilitating Criminal Justice,” Slobogin notes that advanced understanding of brain science, genetics, and behavior has increased insight to the causes of crime, as well as the ability to predict and prevent it.

“We still have much to learn, (but) today we know considerably more about how to implement preventive justice than we did when the reign of indeterminate sentencing came to an end,” he wrote.

This new model would include consideration of psychological characteristics, weighing factors of criminal history, age, and diagnosis. The use of these professional judgment tools should be cornerstones of a better program. Employment of modern techniques to assess case factors and evaluate criminal threat levels when considering sentencing or parole eligibility could substantially lower incarceration rates, wrote Luce.

Other features of a revamped preventive justice system would include allowing persons to serve part of sentences in community-based programs, depending on the risk level of the incarcerated individual. Sentences would not exceed a maximum range, and offenders not classified as high risk should parole after serving their minimum sentence.

In Slobogin’s words, “Done properly, a preventive justice system should significantly reduce prison populations.”

SQRC resident Jamie Van Cleave, 54, said he is back in prison on a parole violation without a new conviction. He’s served an additional four years since being incarcerated and said the punishment does not fit the violation.

“Our parole system is broken,” Van Cleave said. “I’ve more than paid my debt for a non-violent violation, now the state is just warehousing me and wasting the taxpayers’ money.”