Crime may well have been rising. The favors that influence crime are multiple, complicated, and interconnected. Alaska has long scored abysmally when it comes to certain crime measures, like sexual assault and child abuse. No one is pretending that we were in a crimeless utopia before SB91. But that doesn't mean this legislation didn't exacerbate he problem. Nor does I mean that incarceration is a magic bullet, because it clearly isn't, but it's the best option we have to incapacitate criminals' ability to do continued harm to he community. 

We have a lot more crime than we did just a few years ago. That's a fact, both anecdotally and empirically. Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, but tying the hands of police, prosecutors, and judges is a mistake. This isn't a moral panic, and it seems obvious to most of us that lessened penalties have emboldened the criminal class, it's a legitimate concern many (I would say most) have.