{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"80,000 Hours Podcast","title":"#82 – James Forman Jr on reducing the cruelty of the US criminal legal system","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":5288,"description":"No democracy has ever incarcerated as many people as the United States. To get its incarceration rate down to the global average, the US would have to release 3 in 4 people in its prisons today. \r\n\r\nThe effects on Black Americans have been especially severe — Black people make up 12% of the US population but 33% of its prison population. In the early 2000's when incarceration reached its peak, the US government estimated that 32% of Black boys would go to prison at some point in their lives, 5.5 times the figure for whites. \r\n\r\nContrary to popular understanding, nonviolent drug offenders make up less than a fifth of the incarcerated population. The only way to get its incarceration rate near the global average will be to shorten prison sentences for so-called 'violent criminals' — a politically toxic idea. But could we change that? \r\n\r\nAccording to today’s guest, Professor James Forman Jr — a former public defender in Washington DC, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, and now a professor at Yale Law School — there are two things we have to do to make that happen. \r\n\r\nLinks to learn more, summary and full transcript. \r\n\r\nFirst, he thinks we should lose the term 'violent offender', and maybe even 'violent crime'. When you say 'violent crime', most people immediately think of murder and rape — but they're only a small fraction of the crimes that the law deems as violent. \r\n\r\nIn reality, the crime that puts the most people in prison in the US is robbery. And the law says that robbery is a violent crime whether a weapon is involved or not. By moving away from the catch-all category of 'violent criminals' we can judge the risk posed by individual people more sensibly. \r\n\r\nSecond, he thinks we should embrace the restorative justice movement. Instead of asking \"What was the law? Who broke it? What should the punishment be\", restorative justice asks \"Who was harmed? Who harmed them? And what can we as a society,...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/VO1STE7hN95RRg9QdLo4soV2VhhbR9PF5ZZlRhDYcwE/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzQxNDAyLzE2ODM1/NDQ1NDAtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}