In addition to Town Hall, co-sponsors of the event include the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington State, City Club, the Downtown Seattle Association, the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Seattle University School of Law, the University of Washington School of Law and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle.
Seattle and its sister Puget Sound cities and towns are safer than some areas of the United States. Even so, our own communities are burdened by intractable crime problems and the public and social costs of jails and prisons. Mark Kleiman is one of a number of pioneering public policy thinkers who have offered persuasive and creative reforms of our law enforcement and criminal justice systems.
Kleiman believes the current system features unfocused enforcement and sanctions that are randomly applied. This means a failure to target the most damaging criminal behavior, and inconsistent and often overly harsh punishment. As a result, we end up with the worst of all possible worlds: high crime rates and mass incarceration. He proposes reforms that can cut our crime and incarceration rates by half. How? By concentrating enforcement resources, enforcing probation and parole conditions, targeting specific offenders and ensuring swift and certain— though not always severe—punishment. Kleiman details these thoughts in his 2009 book, When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment.
“Ideas that make a real difference don’t come along often. Mark Kleiman’s got a big one here.”
―Robert H. Frank, Cornell University
“Crime is costly. Punishment is costly. Mark Kleiman shows how, by being clever rather than vindictive, we can have much less of both than anyone thought possible.”
―Michael O'Hare, University of California, Berkeley
