Opportunists are using the homicide spike to roll back criminal justice reforms. That’s a mistake.

Facing blood-soaked headlines, some state lawmakers blame an explosion of violence on recently enacted criminal justice reforms. They would roll back the reforms using a pitch that goes like this: “These reforms have led to the release of thousands of dangerous criminals who now wreak havoc on our streets. We've tried it their way and it hasn't worked.”

It's a clean, appealing message. Unfortunately, it's dead wrong.

Criminal justice reform did not cause a surge in violent crime. Instead, criminologists have long understood that crime rates rise after a major social disruption – like a pandemic.

It happened in Baghdad with a wave of crime following the U.S. invasion; it happened in New Orleans when murder spiked after Hurricane Katrina; it happened in Baton Rouge six years ago after a flood that left 100,000 people homeless; and it’s happening now nationwide with this pandemic. In all these cases, a major social disruption was followed by a sudden increase in murders. These crime trends are about the pandemic, not about criminal justice reform.

This explains the trend in Baton Rouge where, in 2019, the annual murders from domestic violence totaled just four. But after crushing isolation made it difficult for victims and aggressors to separate themselves, the annual number climbed to 35. With a 900% increase in these types of murders, do we need more evidence of the criminogenic effects of this pandemic?

But some used this uptick in homicide as a justification to resist badly needed criminal justice reforms. Although the effort yielded limited success, the mood and intent of the Legislature in the 2022 session was one of extending sentences as a deterrent. Those spearheading the effort fell back on expensive, tried-and-failed ideas of the past. If these all-stick and no-carrot policies did actually work, Louisiana wouldn’t have the highest crime rate in the country -- and wouldn’t have three cities among the most violent in America.

Never forget the last time American politicians promised us salvation. In the 1980s they preached for mass incarceration as a solution to the crime problem. The result was a massive prison industry with a staggering price tag, a disgraceful legacy of mass incarceration, shattered state budgets and a spike in homicide a few years later that dwarfs the rise we see today. Thanks, but no thanks.

Criminal justice reforms work. My team at LSU helped Louisiana aggressively pursue reform and drop its prison population from over 40,000 to under 27,000 in recent years. While this drop is saving our cash-strapped state well over $100 million per year, the percentage of released offenders returning to prison has dropped steadily. Indeed, the two-year return-to-prison rate in state facilities dropped from 24.8% to 20.7% in just a few years. Not a bad start, so why stop now?

We can blunt the current homicide spike by targeting its two main causes: domestic violence and gang activity. To catalyze the healing process, we can identify households at risk for domestic problems and offer assistance before the underlying conflicts explode into murder. To address gang violence, we must track known gang members and offer a bitter cocktail of carrot and (very big) stick to stop the violence, an intervention strategy known to save lives and save money.

Only evidence-based strategies, and not failed yesteryear policies, will bring peace to our streets.

Edward S. Shihadeh is a professor of criminology and sociology at the Louisiana State University. He is the director of the Crime and Policy Evaluation Research Group at LSU.