I think we over-imprison people, but let&#x27;s not ignore there was an actual crime wave.  Between, say, 1960 until the peak in 1991, violent crimes per 100k per year went from 160 to 758 for a 470% increase, remaining over 600 through 1997.  And even in 1995 nobody knew that the crime wave had peaked; it would take another 8+ years (6 years of data plus reporting lag) for people to realize that.<p>There&#x27;s no way not to have a large reaction to such a dramatic increase.<p>my plot from the wikipedia data available [1]:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;H2ahd9y" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;H2ahd9y</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Crime_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Crime_in_the_United_States</a>