Earlier this week, I gave an optimistic read on the state of criminal justice reform in response to Max Ehrenfreud’s more pessimistic take (Ed Kilgore summarizes the exchange nicely and adds his own thoughts here)
The news today from the Department of Justice belongs to the optimists: The U.S. imprisonment rate has fallen for the sixth straight year. In 2014, the rate fell to a level not seen since 2001
Last year, Nancy LaTourneau wrote a thoughtful piece on cynicism versus hope in politics. In it, she contrasted my optimistic take on de-incarceration for Washington Post in 2014 with a gloomy bit of doom-saying at Think Progress. Remarkably, both pieces were based on the same 2013 incarceration data.
Nancy wrote at the time that she was choosing hope over cynicism. Today’s imprisonment numbers affirm that stance. Without faith in our ability to change our country we will surrender to despair and never build the kind of criminal justice system we need.
Author: Keith Humphreys
Keith Humphreys is a Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University. His research, teaching and writing have focused on addictive disorders, self-help organizations (e.g., breast cancer support groups, Alcoholics Anonymous), evaluation research methods, and public policy related to health care, mental illness, veterans and drugs. He is the author or co-author of numerous books and scholarly articles, and has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Guardian (UK), the San Francisco Chronicle and other media outlets.
When he is not in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is usually in London, where he is an ad hoc policy adviser to the national and city government, an honorary professor of psychiatry at Kings College, a senior editorial adviser to the journal Addiction, and a member of The Athenaeum.
When he is not in the San Francisco Bay Area or London, he is usually in Washington D.C., where he serves as a frequent science and policy advisor to federal agencies, and where he has served previously as an appointee to a White House commission and several Secretarial task forces. From July 2009-2010, he served as Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
When he is not in the San Francisco Bay Area or London or Washington D.C., he is usually in the Middle East, where since 2004 he has volunteered in the international humanitarian effort to rebuild Iraq’s mental health care system. This work has taken him to Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon to teach and consult with Iraqi health professionals and policy makers.
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