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John Pfaff Profile picture
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25 May, 4 tweets, 2 min read
The main talking point is that the tough on crime types are going to politicize the spike to roll back reforms and make life worse for lots of ppl.

It’s not “inconvenient.” It’s abt ppl’s lives and the bad status quo that harms them.
I mean. Come on.

This is SUCH a bad-faith take on what mobilizes reformers.

I’m not concerned abt the politics of homicide bc I’m some politics guy thinking abt politics for its own sake.

It’s bc politics drive POLICY.
It’s SO infuriating. “Oh, let’s not focus on the politics.”

Where do you think the policies come from? Mass incarceration didn’t just… happen. It was POLITICS. Maybe if the POLITICS had been handled differently we wouldn’t be the world’s jailer.

It is SUCH an insulting frame.
“Let’s not focus on politics, just policy” is a take UTTERLY DIVORCED from … any policy space. Any.

The police union in Philly spend millions attacking Krasner but the reformers are misguided thinking abt politics?

My effort to stay generally polite #onhere is… strained.

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John Pfaff Profile picture
25 May
The extent of actual reforms, esp of policing, have been WILDLY overstated.

If violence rises, it is far more a criticism of the durable status quo, not of reforms. At least in actuality.

But The Narrative, as always, evaluates reforms in a way it NEVER does tough on crime.
Reforms are always forced to defend themselves and show their cost benefit bonafides.

Something never—truly never—demanded of police and prisons. We’ve NEVER compared their social benefits and costs. They’re just... accepted.

Not anymore.

theappeal.org/the-incalculab… Image
The burden of proof should be on the status quo, ESP given the widespread and uniform nature of the rise in homicides.

It’s the status quo that’s failing. It’s the status quo that ppl in higher crime nbhds repeatedly express distrust of. Shouldn’t IT have to justify itself?
Read 4 tweets
John Pfaff Profile picture
23 May
In 1971, a man out of prison on furlough shot and killed a police officer. In 1972, another person on furlough in the same state committed another murder.

Law enforcement demanded the program be ended. The governor refused.

Who was this gov? Noted progressive… Ronald Reagan.
The politics of punishment are not some immutable thing. They have changed. They will change again. They are changing, because activists on the street are pushing and agitating and knocking on doors. Because the human cost of the status quo grows worse and worse every day.
It’s easy to tell a static story, where the politics of now is the politics of tomorrow.

But that ignores the very hard, real, and often ignored-by-major-papers work being done to change those politics.

And such takes are not Sagely Objective. They REINFORCE that status quo.
Read 4 tweets
John Pfaff Profile picture
23 May
Worth noting Bill Stuntz’s point abt the 1960s: when crime surged in cities, suburbs didn’t care.

It wasn’t until 1969-onwards—after the unrest in Watts, Detroit, Newark—that white suburbanites cared. When racial threat got triggered.

The politics of crime are… complicated.
Everyone is suddenly an expert on the politics of crime.

Did you know that then-Gov Ronald Reagan resisted an effort to Willie Horton CA’s furlough program? Or that prison pops FELL as crime rose in the 60s?

Like, the history here is complicated.
And worthy noting, too, that the whole ppl-afraid-as-crime-dropped isn’t a story of ignorance but fear.

Fear fell during the 90s, with crime. Rational! We were learning!

Reversed in 2001, for clear reasons.

Again: the politics here are not trivial.
Read 8 tweets
John Pfaff Profile picture
23 May
Article starts by the journo saying he was surprised by theft levels in 2016.

Then only data here is a quote from Walgreens guy saying SF theft 4x national average.

THAT’S NOT TREND DATA.

Piece framed as “getting worse,” provides ZERO data for it.

nytimes.com/2021/05/21/us/…
It’s also keeps quoting ppl for oblique refs to “no consequences”—which is obviously made as a dig at Boudin but really seems like a critique of the SFOD. Or Walgreens refusing to hire security.
Also, the article just takes law enforcement’s word that it is theft gangs and property crime reform, w no data.

This has to stop. Law enforcement lies all the time. George Floyd had a medical issue, and look at how they kept misrepresenting bail reform in NY.
Read 7 tweets
John Pfaff Profile picture
21 May
I think it is really important to make sure we frame the geography here carefully.

Krasner didn’t survive. He won convincingly. And—this is my main point—did ESPECIALLY well where shootings were the HIGHEST.
Saw this in Queens, too: Cabán did well where violence was high.

I’m about to try to get an RA to gather the data for Chicago in 2016, 2020, Boston, StL, etc Bet the pattern holds: more support for progressives in higher-impact nbhds.
Now, things looks MUCH worse at the state level, where crime policy is far more symbolic some impacted communities have far lesser voice: theappeal.org/defund-the-pol…

But it is VITAL to emphasize WHO is opposing the reformers. It’s the LESS-impacted.
Read 6 tweets
John Pfaff Profile picture
20 May
Adding a new section to my crim class, and feel like this may be THE most under-appreciated fact abt the crim legal system: just HOW many cases drop out of it.

Half of crimes don't get reported. Half of THOSE don't get arrested. Maybe 5% of crimes --> prison in the end?
These are rough estimates, merging numbers from not-exactly-comparable datasets.

And yes, much of that data is old. It's the most up to date, but... yeah.

Still, even if off by a factor of 2 (weakest point is the arrest-to-prosecutor part)? There's a LOT of attrition.
The findings have ambiguous political implications.

Tough-on-crime types can look at it and say "man, imagine how much better still things could be if we shored this up."

My take? Non-crim legal system ... things ... are likely what constrain behavior the most.
Read 4 tweets

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