John Pfaff

@johnpfaff.bsky.social

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Professor at Fordham Law. Prisons and criminal justice quant. I'm not contrarian, the data are. Author of Locked In. New stuff at johnfpfaff.com.

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That a Yale con law person wrote this on July 2 of this year, in the Atlantic, just further confirms for me that the legal academy, or at least its elite Con Law branch, simply does not seem to be up to the task the current political moment demands.

Decarceration in the US has been almost exclusively a Dem-voting county endeavor, despite rhetoric abt bipartisanship. In a sample of 27 states (holding ~75% of the ppl in prison), Democratic-leaning counties were responsible for ~90% of the decline. And ironically, CA makes the GOP look good:

If we drop CA, which adopted a massive state-level change no other state attempted, then ... in my sample of 27 states, ALL the decline is driven by Dem-voting states, since on net GOP counties pushed prison pops up (tho their urbanest counties saw drops). The net GOP decline is a CA-GOP decline.

Agree, but think we can aim higher: put the Court in strip malls in Kansas, not backrooms still in DC.

Move the Supreme Court back to their small old room in the basement of the Capitol, and give the SCOTUS building to DC Public Schools. (the first step in curbing the court is changing the way the public views them, and also the way they view themselves.)

Which means fewer ppl die in summer than during the rest of the year. Total deaths in state prisons from 2001-2019? 65,000. That translates into 16,250 every quarter (ie, season). So 13,000 over the summer months is below expectations. *Sadly needed throat-clear*: I AM NOT DEFENDING PRISONS.

Over the past two decades, nearly 13,000 people have perished behind bars during America's summer months. As heat waves have become more common, these deaths have worsened. capitalbnews.org/michael-broa...

The Growing Crisis of Heatwave Deaths in America’s Prisonscapitalbnews.org Over the past two decades, nearly 13,000 people have perished behind bars during America's summer months.

You don’t even need to make a “Torment Nexus” joke here. We already have the real book—with a movie—that was meant as a warning, not a roadmap.

Oh. My. God. Put aside the nakedly dystopian nature of this. If it were done—and can’t imagine it will—it COMPLETELY GETS THINGS WRONG. The trauma of being a victim is often a major CAUSE of future OFFENDING. And this program aims to TRAUMATIZE MORE!

oh my god now there's a "future of prison" startup that says it will use AI and brain implants to plant fake memories into the brains of criminals, "rehabilitating" them in minutes instead of years and I am going to spend the rest of the day screaming now sciencetimes.com/articles/509...

Cognify: Revolutionary Prison Concept Uses AI and Brain Implants to Fast-Track Criminal Rehabilitationsciencetimes.com Discover how AI and brain implants are transforming rehabilitation. Read more on Cognify's innovative prison concept now!

Also, should have added this: have to realize the negative spillovers from bad rhetoric. Like: emphasizing the police as the response to rising homicides ignores the fact that drug ODs are rising MUCH more. And more cops like = MORE OD deaths, bc of policies cops push for.

The broad takeaway? The Feds can do very little when it comes to the crim legal system. Crime is intensely local (even within cities). Crime policy is driven by local politics and local spending. Which means debates abt crime by Fed officials are really abt deeper issues.

Reply to

John Pfaff

From 2009-19, there were 9 states w consistent GOP house control (8-10 yrs) and declines in prison pops. This table breaks out the declines by type of county (urban vs. rural) and ideology of the county (average % of county's vote for the Dem POTUS). The basic story: declines driven by Dem metros.

If PA seems like a strange state to include (its house was consistently GOP until last year, tho often had Dem governor), dropping it doesn't really change anything. Dem metros did all the heavily lifting.

Now, there is some interstate variation. These graphs are a little ugly, but they disaggregate the tables into the nine relevant states. SC and NC saw some bipartisan declines. But still, a clear pattern: Dem-leaning counties generally declines. Rep-leaning ones all over the map.

Absolutely toxic confluence of climate change, woefully-managed facilities, and flagrant indifference (at best) to the lives of those in prison. And that’s before you get to the broader question of what we gain from locking someone like this up at this pt in his life anyway. Just waste upon waste.

After Earning a Degree From Northwestern While Incarcerated, Michael Broadway Dies in Custody at 51 as Family Questions Medical Response

After Earning a Degree From Northwestern While Incarcerated, Michaelnews.wttw.com The circumstances around his death have left friends, family and others incarcerated at Stateville questioning the sequence of events around his medical treatment. Friends who witnessed his death last...

Reply to

Noah Shusterman

There are ~110,000 K-12 schools in the US. There were 46 school shootings in 2022 (which was a peak). That translates to 0.04% of all schools experiencing a shooting. As an upper edge. Far too high, but still rare. Much smaller than # of schools w lockdown drills.

Not the prettiest graph, but was trying to get a sense of decline in Dem power at the state lege level over the past ~10yrs. Simple story: Dems lost majorities in 13 states, picked up 1 In places that kept D majorities, it shrank in 9/18 In places that kept R majorities, R maj shrank in 2/15

The 45deg line, w POTUS share on the y-axis, is intended to be a rough measure of over-representation. A point below the 45 degree line = Dem share of house > Dem share of POTUS vote (pro-D house lean). Above is pro-R. If an arrow is ~45deg itself, suggest no real shift in RELATIVE lean.

If we zoom in on the state w Dem majorities in 2009 and 2020, the picture (in terms of over-representation) is somewhat unclear. Some states (the blue lines) seem to be turning more "balanced": share of Dems converging on share of POTUS vote. Red lines showing growing D power. Split is 50/50.

A similarly-ambiguous picture does NOT emerge in those states that maintained GOP majorities in 2009 and 2020. The long blue arrows that are fairly flat (slopes closer to 0 than 1) are states where the GOP expanded its house share far faster than the state itself drift right in POTUS elections.

Not a deep insight, but these graphs show the Dems and GOP are playing completely different games, in that the GOP is playing the game, and the Dems are, far too often (I see you, NYS Dems!) self-disarming. Also, Dem share in House and Senate are pretty equal, so choice of House doesn't matter.

This may be my favoritest slide of all time. The statistics of no-hit early 1990s boy bands and the podcasts about them, and what they teach us about the pitfalls of survivorship bias and the hard work to avoid it.

Authors are, I believe, listed in order of deceasing importance. (The ridiculous juxtaposition here just cracked me up.)

From this:

Why, WHY [Kirk in Wrath of Kahn] WHHHHHHYYYYYYY.... ... would you provide these files ONLY as pdfs? Why? They SCREAM "make me a .csv"! I get why govt agencies do this. They do it BECAUSE they want to make it hard to use. But why do think tanks et al do this? Why why WHY?

Reply to

John Pfaff

Scond point is a recent empirical confirmation of Leovy’s prediction. A book I’m reading on 21stC Chicago gangs notes outdoor drug markets are basically gone, but violence has gotten WORSE, in part bc corporate gang structure has collapsed. Violence, but not due to prohibition-driven turf wars.

Also from The Policing Machine, confirming my suspicion that weed legalization likely wouldn’t change police behavior much bc they could always shift to adjacent laws. Which they did. What stopped them was the DA refusing to charge the pretexts, not that the pretexts wouldn’t work.

Great example, from Tony Cheng’s The Policing Machine, of how the NYPD uses local block meetings to have uniformed officers engage in direct political advocacy. Here: working to coordinate residents to push back against Eric Gonzalez’s unwillingness to prosecute misdemeanor marijuana cases.

Ok, some graphic support. Here are trends in state prison pops, broken out by how important states said 1994 Grants were to their policy decision. 4 said it really pushed them to adopt tougher laws, 11 said it had a small effect, 12 said no effect, 23 never qualified. Can't see any real impact!

My latest is up now in Slate. It’s an election year where crime is an issue, so essential to raise this issue sooner than later: THE 1994 CRIME BILL DID NOT CAUSE MASS INCARCERATION. It didn’t. It. Just. Did. Not.

Joe Biden’s Most Infamous Law Still Haunts Him. For All the Wrong Reasons.slate.com Thirty years after it passed, it’s still totally misunderstood.

Now, I'm stacking the deck in my favor: TIS laws are abt increasing time-to-parole--their impact won't be seen right away. But then think of the right edge of the blue box--the end of the grants--as the start of TIS's impact. Still! No change in trends there either. If anything, things flatten!

The red lines highlight the seven states with the biggest prison pops in 1995. Collectively, these seven--CA, TX, NY, FL, OH, MI, IL--housed just over 51% of all ppl in prison that year. The impact of the Crime Bill on them matters the most. Nothing tougher during the box, or after! Some decline.

Bluesky has gone full Twitter. Genuinely sad to see.

The Feds give out “millions per year” to the police. Police budgets in the US are close to $100 BILLION. The millions that come from Byrne grants and other sources do not move that needle at all. Mass incarceration—and mass punishment—are NOT THE PRODUCT OF FEDERAL POLICY. They just aren’t.

www.americanprogress.org/article/1994...

The 1994 Crime Bill Continues to Undercut Justice Reform—Here’s How to Stop Itwww.americanprogress.org Lawmakers who are considering what should follow the FIRST STEP Act, the federal sentencing and prison reform effort, must begin by reversing the infrastructure that the 1994 federal crime bill create...