Overview

Locked In is a revelatory investigation into the root causes of mass incarceration by one of the most exciting scholars in the country. Having spent fifteen years studying the data on imprisonment, John Pfaff takes apart the reigning consensus created by Michelle Alexander and other reformers, revealing that the most widely accepted explanations--the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons--tell us much less than we think. Pfaff urges us to look at other factors instead, including a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred in the mid-1990s, when prosecutors began bringing felony charges against arrestees about twice as often as they had before. He describes a fractured criminal justice system, in which counties don't pay for the people they send to state prisons, and in which white suburbs set law and order agendas for more-heavily minority cities. And he shows that if we hope to significantly reduce prison populations, we have no choice but to think differently about how to deal with people convicted of violent crimes--and why some people are violent in the first place.

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9781665254045

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In the extremely important book, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform, John F. Pfaff analyzes why America incarcerates more people than ever even as crime rates continue to fall . . . [he] also makes a compelling case that incarceration disrupts the lives of the incarcerated and their families long after they have served their time.-- Wall Street Journal

"In the extremely important book, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform, John F. Pfaff analyzes why America incarcerates more people than ever even as crime rates continue to fall . . . [he] also makes a compelling case that incarceration disrupts the lives of the incarcerated and their families long after they have served their time.-- ""Wall Street Journal"""

Author Information

John F. Pfaff is a professor of law at Fordham Law School. His work on mass incarceration, prosecutors, and criminal justice reform has been covered in the Economist, the New Yorker, the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Review, Slate, and Vox, among many other publications. He has a JD and a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Graham Halstead, an Earphones Award and Audie Award-winning narrator, is a professionally trained actor and voice artist. As an actor, he has worked internationally in Edinburgh and London, as well as at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. His youthful, easy-flowing voice can be heard on television and radio voicing spots for Airborne and Allegra.

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