It is. The history as most voters perceive it is: crime was high and rising fast in the 70s and 80s, until we got "tough on crime" in the late 80s and early 90s, and crime finally started declining once all the criminals knew we'd be tough. So they conclude that the modern American justice system is what's causing crime to decline, and are concerned that being "soft on crime" would make crime start spiking again.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of mass incarceration, but you can see where the skepticism of reform comes from. It's impossible to overstate how bad things were perceived to be in the 90s.