Locked In, John F. Pfaff
Locked In, John F. Pfaff
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Locked In
The True Causes of Mass Incarceration—and How to Achieve Real Reform

Author: John F. Pfaff

Narrator: Graham Halstead

Unabridged: 9 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/08/2017


Synopsis

Locked In is a revelatory investigation into the root causes of mass incarceration by one of the most exciting scholars in the country. Having spent fifteen years studying the data on imprisonment, John Pfaff takes apart the reigning consensus created by Michelle Alexander and other reformers, revealing that the most widely accepted explanations—the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons—tell us much less than we think.

Pfaff urges us to look at other factors instead, including a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred in the mid-1990s, when prosecutors began bringing felony charges against arrestees about twice as often as they had before. He describes a fractured criminal justice system, in which counties don't pay for the people they send to state prisons, and in which white suburbs set law and order agendas for more-heavily minority cities. And he shows that if we hope to significantly reduce prison populations, we have no choice but to think differently about how to deal with people convicted of violent crimes—and why some people are violent in the first place.


About John F. Pfaff

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Reviews

Goodreads review by Dallas

Rating is really a 3.5, 4 for his research and data analysis, and 3 for his, at times, daft adherence to his own personal stump speech on Mass Incarceration. Pfaff’s research and writing on mass incarceration is a deep dive into the data-based examination of conviction and incarceration, his rebuttal......more

Goodreads review by Raleigh

John Pfaff was interviewed by Mike Pesca on The Gist on 11/2/2015. At the time I was a wannabe criminal justice reformer, toiling away in more generic nonprofit endeavors (and not aware that I was would begin a job in community corrections before the end of the year). I'd read Michelle Alexander and......more