In the 1970s, the U.S. incarceration rate began to rise--and it continued to rise for nearly four decades. As a result, the United States now imprisons a higher proportion of its population than any country in the world. In recent years, however, the decades-long trend of increasingly punitive criminal justice policies and a growing prison population has subsided. Changes unimaginable ten years ago, such as the decriminalization of certain low-level drug offenses, the closing of prisons, and a decline in the overall prison population have occurred. By many measures, the United States is still the most punitive democracy in the world, but these changes are real and consequential. To understand these shifts, many scholars and pundits have drawn attention to the potential influence of the Great Recession. Not only did the Great Recession precede many of these changes, but it seems reasonable to suspect that largest economic shock since the Great Depression could in influence criminal justice policy and resulting incarcerations. After all, it costs a lot to maintain the world's highest incarceration rate. Yet, evidence of a relationship between past recessions and the incarceration rate is mixed at best. Were the effects of the Great Recession more substantial than previous recessions or do the recent shifts in criminal justice policy and the incarceration rate reflect factors beyond the economic climate?