In reaction to increased violence in some American cities this summer, we’re witnessing the old familiar responses. As Chicago experienced record murders, President Donald Trump announced he would send in federal forces while the city’s police department sought to flood neighborhoods with cops. But these policing-focused efforts will not stop the cycle of violence so that everyone is safe. No one understands this better than the people who live in the communities that actually face the violence ― including those, like me, who have been victims.

The Feb. 20 front-page article about efforts to undo parole and sentencing reforms in Louisiana, based on the highly unlikely premise that our rapidly aging prison populations will repeat their crimes even after decades in prison, struck close to home [“La. GOP works to undo prison system changes”]. In Virginia, George Allen’s 1994 signature campaign issue was to abolish parole, in favor of “truth in sentencing.” The actual “truth” back then, as future Justice Antonin Scalia testified to Congress as chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States in 1973, was that courts heavied up on sentences to accommodate the then-realistic chances of parole — anticipating “that a prisoner who demonstrates his desire for rehabilitation will not serve the maximum term or anything approaching the maximum.”