Jason Brennan on Incentives and Criminal Justice: Deep Dive

April 10, 2022


The American criminal justice system has a lot of problems: Violent cops, high rates of imprisonment, and harsh sentences. Understanding the financial incentives in the system is necessary to correctly identify the causes of these problems and focus the solutions. 
Jason Brennan is the Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Term Professor and the Director of the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics. He specializes in issues at the intersection of politics, philosophy, and economics. He is the author of ten books, mostly recently publishing Injustice for All: How Financial Incentives Created America's Dysfunctional Criminal Justice System and How to Fix It coauthored with Chris Surprenant (@CWSurprenant), a professor of ethics, strategy, and public policy at the University of New Orleans. In their book, Brennan and Surprenant argues that criminal justice reform that works will require recognizing existing profit incentives and realigning them to produce better outcomes.

You'll also find out, as always, the one thing Brennan thinks young people today should know and something he's changed his mind about.

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The Great Antidote: Jason Brennan on Incentives and Criminal Justice | Adam Smith Works

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