Fordham Professor John Pfaff was quoted by The Marshall Project on why a lack of data prevents important criminal justice questions from being answered.
“I don’t think the BJS can do it,” said John Pfaff, a professor at Fordham Law School in New York. “Every year, Congress asks them to do more and more already. I don’t think they have the capacity to do any more. They do amazing stuff, but I don’t think they can.”
When it comes to bad data, police aren’t even the worst offenders. While there is data on policing and corrections and some on the courts themselves, the biggest piece missing is information on how local prosecutors operate.
“We have really no data whatsoever on what prosecutors do, almost none,” Pfaff said, adding, “We don’t know what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and what drives their decision process.”
And that ignorance has an impact on efforts to reduce incarceration levels and lower sentences. Because we don’t have data on how prosecutors work, we don’t focus on them when we talk about reforms, Pfaff said.