Interview, Podcast
Reducing the cruelty of the US criminal legal system | James Forman Jr. (2020)
- The 80,000 Hours podcast plans to release two consecutive episodes on US criminal justice reform, with the second featuring Professor Jennifer Doliak soon, accompanied by a postscript containing statistics on US police numbers and spending comparisons.
- James Foreman Jr. anticipates his upcoming fall seminar will produce a publication for activists and advocates outlining five to 10 immediate actions intended to alter the nature of policing, with findings also made public for policymakers.
- Foreman predicts that cutting police budgets by 10% while eliminating investigators could worsen crime prevention capabilities, noting that the US currently has more stop-and-frisk style policing than any other democracy and under-invests in serious crime investigators relative to prevention tactics.
- He expects significant cultural and political hurdles in reducing sentence lengths and building alternative infrastructure, as the public conditions itself to view rational reductions as lenient, political opponents wield substantial power, and career shifts toward social work will not occur immediately.
- Foreman anticipates that Washington DC's new law allowing petitions for review of sentences of 15 years or more will enable individuals to return to court, alongside broader expectations for DC to expand restorative justice principles to adult court.
- The outlook suggests the US will maintain the world's highest incarceration rate unless sentence lengths are reduced, contrasting the US strategy of severe punishments with Europe's focus on increasing the probability of detection and spending significantly less on incarceration.
- Protest energy is expected to drive budget changes and consciousness shifts, prompting cities to discuss dismantling and reconstituting police forces, while reform-minded prosecutors are advised to staff up their offices to implement positive impacts.
- Foreman expects that moving funds away from the "defund movement" into mental health, social workers, jobs programs, and drug treatment is necessary for community safety, though replacing "violent offender" labels with case-by-case humanistic conversations remains a key strategy for shifting discourse.