John Pfaff was quoted in a McClatchy article about criminal justice reform.
“Electing prosecutors who are, perhaps, less punitive and more willing to take a more sophisticated (approach) on what works can be a very positive step forward,” said John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University.
These efforts, however, run counter to the Trump administration’s harder approach on crime. In May 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memorandum to federal prosecutors directing them to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense,” when charging defendants. The Sessions memo reversed a 2013 directive by former Attorney General Eric Holder to avoid mandatory minimum prison sentences for minor drug offenders.
Leonard Noisette, director of the Justice Team for U.S. Programs at Open Society Foundations, said the Sessions memo was a return to outdated policies, like “three strikes, you’re out” that rely solely on the deterrent effect of long prison sentences.
“I think there’s a general consensus that the country has gone too far in terms of its use of incarceration,” Noisette said.
The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, Pfaff said.