One of the worst aspects of public policy making in America is that the public has little grasp of the value of prevention. So the fact that releasing people from prisons and jails helps stop the spread of COVID-19 gets devalued or ignored entirely. /1
Similarly, no matter how many times experts talk about how critical testing is to stop the spread, you see so many members unable to grasp that the Trump administration's failure to put widespread testing in place is the key reason we can't cut back on social distancing yet. /2
We see this everywhere: providing better health care would prevent deaths and illnesses and save money in the long-run; so would investing in better schools and infrastructure. These things would prevent worse outcomes, but the public doesn't focus on the value of prevention. /3
That means that the public doesn't really value measures that are taken that bring positive results in the form of stopping bad things from happening or mitigating damage, particularly when it takes a while for those measure to yield visible improvement. /4
Politicians know this about the public, so they don't invest in those things, particularly when their own reelections will come up before preventative measures will yield positive results that can be seen and measures. /5
So they go for policies that appear to do something immediately that they can tout in campaign ads. In criminal law, that almost always means tough new sentences and more prison. It's tangible & quick, and the public can easily understand it. /6
Just like the public can easily understand those media reports of someone getting out when they were released earlier than they otherwise would have been. It's so much harder to explain policies that rely on a longer time horizon for their preventative benefits. /7
So politicians opt for the easy soundbites, even though those policies bring far more long-term costs. Incarcerating more people ends up undermining public safety b/c of how much worse off people are when they serve a long prison term w/no programs or treatment. /8
But that gets completely ignored. People don't even grasp that 95% of the people going into prison will come back out again.They just see the short-term benefit of locking someone away. Yet we could be doing so many other things that would reduce crime more effectively. /9
But those other things take too much time to explain and too much time to show results (e.g., investing in education, vocational training, treatment programs). So they get ignored for the benefit of things that superficially look responsive and quick acting. /10
So the easy course is to focus on simple things like locking up someone or asking why someone wasn't locked up b/c that easy for the public to understand and the media to report on. Anything that's preventing something isn't tangible enough for people to focus on. /11
There's no tabloid story about prevention (unless it's a quick fix like a miracle drug). The stuff that takes time and requires looking at aggregate data is a non-starter for most media outlets and the public. So we don't get those things, even though they are better policies./12
This is the story of criminal law in America. I've been struck by the parallels to the coronavirus. We didn't invest in testing and masks because those were preventive measures, so too many politicians didn't see their value. /13
So then we're left with strikingly worse outcomes than if we had taken those steps, yet so many people fail to blame our leaders for that because they don't understand prevention. Instead, they're mad at the response to the harms those measures could have prevented. /14
So they're angry at social distancing and blame it for the economic hardship, instead of the extraordinary negligence that stopped us from having the right preventative measures in place. /15
It's the same w/crime. We should be upset with our lack of education, health care, investment in communities because we could be preventing crime with those things. Instead, people are angry when one person released earlier than expected commits a crime & focus on the release./16
Someday, I hope we get a gov't structure that does a better job w/long-term planning and sees the value in investing in things that prevent bad outcomes and bring far more benefits than costs. /17
Our highly-politicized, immediate gratification, sensational story-focused world makes that difficult. To get better outcomes, we need leaders who understand they need to do things they might not get credit for b/c those things will stop tragedies or take time to get results /18
We're seeing this play out w/COVID-19, but it's the same dynamic we've had with crime for decades. And the outcome in both is tragic. So many lives have been needlessly harmed b/c prevention ranks too low in the minds of the public and elected officials. /end
