Thread by @JohnFPfaff

We are going to be relitigating the 1994 Crime Act until the sun goes nova and consumes the Earth, aren’t we?

(If we want to relitigate the 1990s forever, let’s at least focus on the still-relevant Prison Litigation Reform Act.)

To be fair, I get why we debate the 1994 Crime Bill instead of the PLRA: the 1994 Act said “here are billions to build more prisons,” while the PLRA focuses on... [big yawn] the exhaustion of administrative remedies.

But the 94 Act didn’t matter much, the PLRA still does.

But the PLRA effectively allowed California alone to murder 60 inmates per year due to inadequate medical care—at a time when the US as a whole was executing abt 35 ppl per year nationwide.

CA almost pulled it off; a 5-4 SCOTUS case forced reforms.

Anyway, the PLRA and AEDPA (which constrains how state inmates can file habeas petitions in Fed court) are complex laws that matter, unlike the straightforward 1994 Crime Act, which mostly doesn’t.

I hope to have a PLRA explainer up soon(ish).

As is too often the case, the real evil in the system lurks in the technocratic, legalistic backwaters. Expands discretion for the harsh or constricts openings for mercy (or maybe just sanity) in near-invisible ways.