What Should Our Justice System Do with Lower-Level Offenders?

If you catch a domestic terrorist or a deranged serial killer, the next steps are obvious enough. Lock him up for life. Maybe even consider the death penalty.

But as Jennifer Doleac — a prominent economist whose work focuses on crime — writes in The Science of Second Chances, “Most people who cycle through our criminal justice system are far more sad than scary.” Most criminal cases arise from minor offenses; even the felonies, meaning crimes punishable by a year or more in prison, are mostly nonviolent.