Crime rates reductions

Since addiction was not considered a legitimate disease meriting a prescription for narcotics (the medical community itself was split), an increasing number of people subsequently resorted to criminal activity to obtain their drugs the cost of heroin on the streets rose from 6.50/ounce to approximately 100. The increase in crime validated the Treasury Department s fear that deprived addicts would threaten the public order. Although passage of the Harrison Act did increase the price of street narcotics, it also resulted in a reduction of patent medicine narcotics as well as a decline in addiction rates. 

Juvenile Justice. Many penologists help provide research and analysis that shapes the policies of the juvenile justice system. For example, researchers have investigated the hypothesis that trying adolescents in adult courts and making them eligible for harsher sentences has a deterrent effect on crime and a reductive effect on recidivism rates. One comparative study of juvenile offenders in the states of New York and New Jersey did not find this to be the case, however. 

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