No...we put them in jail and kept them there. Many didn't deserve it...many others did. We simply locked them up and there was social and political discourse about such. Then some reform came. Crime dropped during the Trump Admin. until Covid. It is now dropping back to those levels during the Biden Administration....as it should.
Again:
And again...incarceration rate 1990 - 2000:
The incarceration rate almost doubled in 10 years. That is insane. And that is why crime dropped. You can't twist shit to favor an opinion. You can not explain away those two charts...period.