Thread by @equalityAlec

This thread is about two facts: 1) Human caging kills. Each year in custody reduces a person's life duration by two years; 2) It is a scientific fact that human caging does not reduce crime. These two facts are not widely known, and that is a failure of judges and media.

First, take a moment to let this sink in: We know that caging people kills them. Every time a judge jails someone on cash bail or sentences them to prison, the judge is literally killing the person sooner. @PrisonPolicy prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/06/2…

Second, social scientists who study incarceration disagree on a lot. But the thing that the entire research community agrees on is that human caging do not reduce crime. This is an incredible finding that is almost entirely absent from media reporting.

https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1453440564930752522

Third, mainstream media engages in something like climate change denial with these facts. Earlier this year, the @nytimes let its SF Bureau Chief fabricate a "shoplifting surge" and then speculate to readers that it was caused by reducing prison sentences.

https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1396653800052641796

Fourth, reporting like this kills people, and WAY more than you might think. The main study on the issue of data from 1981-2007 found that **TOTAL U.S. LIFE EXPECTANCY** was lower by an average of 1.8 years b/c of mass incarceration vs. other countries. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

Fifth, it is hard to overstate this finding. The extreme use of human caging in the U.S. causes the entire national average life expectancy to be lower by almost two years. This is hundreds of millions of years of living--one of the great mass tragedies of the modern world.

Sixth, despite these calamitous public health results, elite bureaucrats and media continue to push for more spending on cops, prosecutors, judges, prisons, probation, parole, without ever confronting basic data about safety.

https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1422949466986921991

Finally, it's important to ask yourself why public officials and media supposedly concerned with "public safety" have created an environment in which almost no one knows these facts. Why? It's vital to change how we talk about safety.

Here's a good meta-study to read about all of the studies for decades that have reached this conclusion:

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1447599536004734980

While the twitter graphic lists the reduction as 5 years, this is an error. As I note in the subsequent tweet, both the article and the study report/find life expectancy to be 1.8 years lower.