The Power of the Prosecutor
Popehat's Ken White and author John Pfaff on the need for reform.
HD Download"There is no evidence that an individual DA in his office is any more punitive today than he was in 1974," explains John Pfaff, author of Locked in: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. "We just have 30,000 of them instead of 17,000 even though the crime rate is roughly the same as it was in 1974. They've got to do something. They can't just play minesweeper all day and keep their jobs."
On May 25th, 2017, at Reason's Washington, D.C. office, Reason hosted a panel discussion with Pfaff and Ken White, former assistant United States attorney and co-founder of the blog Popehat. Moderated by Lauren Krisai, director of Criminal Justice Reform at the Reason Foundation, the discussion touched on the power of prosecutors in the criminal justice system, how prosecutors? ?have ?serve?d? as barriers to meaningful ?criminal justice? reform, and whether an influx of forward-looking district attorneys could change the status quo.
Edited by Ian Keyser. Cameras by Mark McDaniel and Todd Krainin.
Jolanta Blues by Doxent Zsigmond is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Source: http://ccmixter.org/files/doxent/48705
Artist: http://ccmixter.org/people/doxent/profile
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?