"Interrupted time series studies" have examined the effects of specific policies and interventions on criminal activity; examples include police "crackdowns" on drug abuse in certain markets (Tonry, 2000: 345). Studies in this area suggest that these interventions may have a temporary affect but not a long lasting one to deter crime. Basically criminals exposed to such situations simply tend to 'lay low' for a period of time and resume activity as usual. Interventions however like this may serve a preliminary deterrent effect, hence when combined with other therapies including possibly intervention may result in more long lasting effects much more efficient than jail time alone for reducing crime rates (Tonry, 2000). These studies do confirm the notion that jail time and death penalty alone are not adequate interventions for deterring criminal activity. .

             Within the United States roughly five to eight times the number of people per capita are imprisoned than in Western European nations despite similar crime rates; the number of federal and state prisons alone in the U.S. has increased more than 500 percent in the last few decades (Monthly Review, 2001). Many consider the state of prisons in the United States a social crisis of sorts of "the highest magnitude" that needs immediate resolution (Monthly Review, 2001:1). Despite increasingly high incarceration rates little evidence suggests that prisons are actually serving a beneficial purpose, which is to deter crimes among criminals or reduce the rates of recidivism or repeat crimes among offenders (Monthly Review, 2001). That leads us to a discussion on the rapidly increasing rates of crime throughout the nation. .

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             Part II - New Methods of Solving Crime.

             Crime is on the rise, thus law enforcement agents must discover new ways for deterring criminals. In the past the primary method of deterrence adopted by law enforcement agents was apprehension and punishment.