[wahern]

AFAICT, the 600k figure comes the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. And the author of that tweet is a criminal law and criminal justice scholar, currently a professor at Fordham University. I don't remember reading any of his works specifically, but I have read plenty of scholarship on the issue. This summary, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/10/how-we-misunde..., of his latest book seems consonant with everything I've read.

Criminal justice reform advocates created, or at least found themselves with, a particular narrative around the drug wars that heavily emphasized and even exaggerated aspects such as incarceration. That narrative helped to generate support for reform, but it wasn't very accurate. The truth is more complex, but no less in need of addressing. But if you don't have an accurate understanding of the underlying dynamics (e.g. not just that the system is racist, but why and how--those are vary important details) you're not going to be able to remediate it very well.

[boomboomsubban]

>And the author of that tweet is a criminal law and criminal justice scholar, currently a professor at Fordham University

Yes, an excellent authority, but it is still just an appeal to authority. The first one was the truly objectionable one.

I'm not saying that legalizing marijuana will solve all the legal systems problems, but it would remove a significant weight from an overburdened system. ~5% of prisoners alone is a lot of people, plus think of how many public defender hours are spent on these matters.