I have, it's the main topic I study. I've just never met anyone with the view that increased incarcerations rates are not associated with decreases in crime (specifically, violent crime), and I don't think the data supports that either. I literally have no idea how you came to that conclusion given the stats available to researchers over the last 40 years.
I'm not suggesting that there aren't other ways to decrease crime besides incarceration, there are many possibilities. But I don't think there's any data showing that incarcerating criminals doesn't reduce (violent) crime.
So I'll just assume we agree in general, and that our definitions are different somehow, since we seem to be looking at the same datasets.
It’s clear that incarceration rates are associated with falling violent crime, to the extent that one went up and the other went down, but the existence of large jurisdictions that enjoyed the latter without the former casts doubt on the idea of causation.
I'm not suggesting that there aren't other ways to decrease crime besides incarceration, there are many possibilities. But I don't think there's any data showing that incarcerating criminals doesn't reduce (violent) crime.
So I'll just assume we agree in general, and that our definitions are different somehow, since we seem to be looking at the same datasets.