John Pfaff joins us this week to talk about the United States’s unusually high rate of incarceration. How many Americans are in prison or in jail? What did they do to get there?

If we have roughly the same crime rate as we did in 1970, but have five times as many people in prison as we did then, what are those extra people in prison for?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Pfaff’s book is Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration—and How to Achieve Real Reform (2017).

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America (2015) by Jill LeovyLocking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America (2017) by James Forman, Jr.Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court (2010) by Amy Bach

Listeners may also be interested in our Free Thoughts podcast episode with Bernard Kerik, “From Jailer to Jailed: Bernard Kerik’s Story.”

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