Latest Criminal Justice News and Commentary 7.9.25
Top reads: The prison industry is booming under Trump, writes Bianca Tylek; Vera Action reported on some very interesting polling they did on crime talk in the NYC mayor’s race; the cost of incarceration to families was estimated at $350 billion a year.
Media
On July 8, Penguin Press will publish The Jailhouse Lawyer, a memoir by Calvin Duncan, who spent 30 years advocating for other prisoners at Angola while fighting for his own release from wrongful conviction, written with Sophie Cull.
Watch Over Us is a short film at Tribeca documenting a mother whose 7-year sentence for selling drugs was delayed a year so she could raise her newborn twins before being forced to leave.
Alec Karakatsanis did a Q+A with the Columbia Journalism Review about his new book, Copaganda, which critiques the liberal media’s reinforcement of prison and jail systems. And here’s Alec interviewed on NPR about his book.
Fwd.us produced a short video on the heavy cost of supporting incarcerated loved ones.
I was pretty shocked to learn recently about two extremely exploitative reality TV shows focused on incarceration: 60 Days In, and Love After Lockup. It’s hard to believe these even exist. The #AIRS campaign is fighting this - here’s a short video about their campaign.
Malcolm Gladwell reviews Unforgiving Places by Jens Ludwig, which explores the circumstantial nature of violence, which makes reduction easier than you’d think. “Why does crime seem more related to places than to people? Because some places are simply better at de-escalation than others. . . And why did Philadelphia’s vacant-lot program work so well? Because, when an empty lot becomes a well-kept lawn, people come outside. They have barbecues and picnics. Kids play. And suddenly, as Jane Jacobs famously put it, the block has ‘eyes on the street.’”
Solutions and Wins
Ramin Fatehi, the progressive prosecutor of Norfolk, Virginia, was reelected by 5 points. He campaigned on a platform of criminal justice reform. Bolts has a wonderful in-depth story here.
“The US is on track to record the lowest violent crime rate since 1968 and lowest property crime rate ever,” according to crime data analyst Jeff Asher.
The NYTimes covered some of the positive impacts of California’s resentencing law, which allows prosecutors to review sentences and ask for reconsideration after a conviction.
Partners for Justice, led by Emily Galvin-Almanza, has a national program to place client advocates in public defender offices, addressing clients needs and allowing defense attorneys to focus on legal strategy. Stateline covered the positive effects of the program.
U.S. overdose deaths decreased 27% in 2024, according to the CDC.
Police are responding to 911 calls much quicker than in the past in New Orleans. Jeff Asher attributes this to efforts to increase the number of civilian public safety staff, who are unarmed and aren’t police officers, who can respond to non-injury traffic incidents. Safer Cities has many more examples of the positive impacts of increasing the number of non-police responders.
Mark Fairhurst, the head of the police officers’ union in the UK, opposes a government proposal to spend £4.7 billion on new prisons, and advocates for cutting the number of people in prison by half, focusing on supportive services.
Commentary and Analysis
In the Atlantic, Keith Humphreys projected that the prison population is going to continue dropping precipitously to around 600,000 people, half the current level (this doesn’t count jails). He argues that prison populations reflect crime rates and crime policies from 10-20 years ago, and since we are moving long past the 90s now, we are getting into the era where the fruits of changes that have been going on for the past 15 years are really going to be felt. In 2007, 18 and 19 year olds were 5x as likely to be incarcerated as men over 64; now they are one half as likely. I think there’s a lot right with this article, but I caution that it assumes too strong a nexus between crime and incarceration. Governments have shown that they are very capable of increasing incarceration while crime is falling, as America’s overall incarceration policy attests (source for chart here).
Two theologians urge Christians to fight to end mass incarceration.
The editor of the Davis Vanguard asks why only ‘progressive’ prosecutors catch heat when status quo prosecutors regularly engage in unethical and destructive behavior.
Vincent Schiraldi, a devoted and exceptionally capable justice reform leader, is stepping down as the head of the Maryland department of juvenile services. He explained his reasons in the Baltimore Sun, saying that the Maryland legislature was perpetuating massive harm by refusing to pass reforms to prevent children from languishing in jail and prison.
There was a lot of commentary on Zohran Mamdani’s win in the NYC mayoral primary. Two comments that stuck out to me were (1) this tweet showing how Zohran changed the priority of issues in the race from immigration to affordability; and (2) this post offering analysis on what it took to win. Here’s the last paragraph, reminding us how the electorate is made:
The problem with the polling and all the emphasis on data in contemporary politics is that it does not take into account that the electorate doesn’t really exist until election day, and the politician and his or her campaign are actively creating that electorate. All political errors, from the level of action to analysis, are based on reifying the situation, believing in a static, factual reality that cannot be changed. And all great political successes are based on the opposite: the art of the impossible; believing in a chance for something new.
Reports
FWD.us has worked with leading researchers at Duke University and NORC at the University of Chicago to document that incarceration is costing families with incarcerated loved ones almost $350 billion every year. Moreover, they find that: “The estimates on the price tag of incarceration for families presented in this report are conservative at best since we have not included the costs of legal and attorney fees, criminal justice debt, direct taxpayer spending on jail and prison facilities, family separation, reduced life expectancies, and numerous other costs of the criminal justice system that were either impossible to put a dollar figure on or not as directly related to incarceration.”
The Justice Innovation Lab did a study finding that early screening of cases in Charleston County– meaning a careful review to make sure the case has merit and throwing out bad cases ASAP– was extremely beneficial in avoiding unnecessary jail stays and litigation. Two part-time attorneys cleared 224 cases, saving the county $400,000 over 18 months.
The Prison Policy Initiative did a major new jails study to break down data on what charges are landing people in jail right now.
The National Police Accountability Project has a new white paper on options for non-compliance with ICE and how to disrupt the arrest to deportation pipeline.
The Fund for Guaranteed Income and the ACLU of Louisiana teamed up to run a pilot reparations program for 12 people who were victimized by police violence in Louisiana. Here’s their report.