John Pfaff’s book on mass incarceration and criminal justice reform was mentioned in an NBC News article.
The movement has been supported by new research into the causes of the three-decade rise in prison populations, which peaked in 2009, long after crime began to decline. In his 2017 book, “Locked In,” Fordham University law professor John Pfaff blamed prosecutors, “the most powerful actors in the criminal justice system,” for driving drastic increases in felony cases, all but a tiny fraction of which result in plea bargains. Those locally elected prosecutors, Pfaff wrote, are rarely held accountable by voters for their decisions.
But Pfaff also documented how reform candidates have started to challenge that narrative.