John Roman

"Successes from prevention are statistical rather than personal." Nice article from @johnkroman.bsky.social on violence prevention and its challenges in the US

How Prevention Reduced Crime and How To Get More of It Prevention is the third rail of Abundance. Let's fix that.

open.substack.com/pub/johnkrom...

How Prevention Reduced Crime and How To Get More of It Prevention is the third rail of Abundance. Let's fix that.

How Prevention Reduced Crime and How To Get More of It
open.substack.com/pub/johnkrom...

I do. There is a compelling efficiency argument. I think we grossly underestimate how inefficient the justice system is in sorting people into 'serious, chronic offender' or not serious. The system is instead arbitrary and random. There is a lot of efficiency to be gained by shrinking this system.

The Great Crime Decline Is Happening All Across the Country Even cities with understaffed police departments have made record gains.

Why could crime have declined? Leading criminologists like @johnkroman.bsky.social increasingly point to state, local, and federal investments in crime prevention. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Medicine can reduce crime GLP-1 and Crime Reductions: Reducing crime through better health

In the debate about whether Medicaid should pay for access to GLP-1s, the potential benefit of widespread access to GLP-1s, lowering crime rates, is rarely included among the potential benefits. If it were, it might tip the scales in favor of broader coverage. johnkroman.substack.com/p/medicine-c...

Zebras were giving it to Denver no matter what. Brutal.

Mapping Police Violence Law enforcement agencies across the country are failing to provide us with even basic information about the lives they take. So we collect the data ourselves.

Saying Trump is "weaponizing" these systems ignores that they were already much-used weapons, only targeting ppl w/o political power. DOJ's blessing of Rene Good's shooting is based on precedents from cops getting a pass in >1,000 such cases/year. If this is authoritarianism, maybe that was, too.

Cool job alert:

"Postdoctoral Scholar: Criminal Justice Research Center & PA Department of Corrections"

This is an opportunity to contribute to the fantastic research program at the PA DOC under Bret Bucklen.

Stay in school kids. When your connecting flight is delayed, and you’re gaming out alternate routes, all that algebra is going to be really helpful.

Every day, school is a surprise.

Me: "Hey! Let's go! The bus will be here any minute"

Child: "What are you talking about??!?"

The Prosecutors and Politics Project at UNC School of Law has released a study analyzing over 11,000 bills changing criminal law in all 50 states between 2015 and 2018. Please join me and a very distinguished panel today, October 1, at Noon EST to discuss the implications. lnkd.in/etzAqi3M

It’s true though!!

<kicks can>
<sulks>
<jumps on tiny dirt bike>
>rides off into the dirty sunset>

Once again, Gen X is forgotten.

I would be happy to accept that title!

Without looking closely, I have twelve papers in there. Since authors are not paid for academic articles, the irony would be that this would be my first check.

I think 83% of my emails are this exchange.

Them: What time can you meet on Wednesday?
Me: Anytime but 10 to 11
Them: Great, I'll send an invite for 10.

In the opening sequence of Numbers, he writes X=yb on the glass. That was the beginning of the end...

AI Startup Flock Thinks It Can Eliminate All Crime In America With more than 80,000 AI-powered cameras across the U.S., Flock Safety has become one of cops’ go-to surveillance tools. Now CEO Garrett Langley has both police tech giant Axon and Chinese drone maker...

Crime control is undergoing a massive shift in the US and around the world, with surveillance tech advancing much faster than privacy protections. Bottom-line: the tech does reduce crime, and, it will likely infringe on civil liberties without careful regulation. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

When people say crime is a big problem, are they really talking about crime? Sometimes, but not always

Polls show most Americans think crime is rising because 'crime' is a catch-all term. But, there are dozens of evidence-based ways to reduce disorder and fight crime, and many of the most effective approaches do not involve the police. open.substack.com/pub/johnkrom...

This post was your magnum opus. Bravo.

On the YIMBY-Abundance Crime Blind Spot Nudging the pro-city crowd toward more effective crime policy

The Abundance agenda has real promise, but it does require a much more serious approach to crime. open.substack.com/pub/johnkrom...

Bravo!

Spot on. I would note that there are 43 law enforcement agencies operating in Washington, the majority of which are federal. The Capitol Hill police alone have a force about the size of Cleveland's municipal police.

Trump Wants to ‘Take Back’ D.C., but the Federal Government Already Controls Much of It

The president wants to “take back” DC, but the federal government never really let it go.

It touches nearly every aspect of life in the city, making it harder for local officials to manage even the things Trump cares most about.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/u...

Explaining the COVID Violence Spike and the Roaring Crime Decline Four Reasons for the Historic Beginning to the 2020s

There are several evidence-based explanations for the crime spike and decline. I summarize them here, and explain why some fit the data better than others: johnkroman.substack.com/p/explaining...

Opinion | Crime Keeps Falling. Here’s Why.

Such a bad take from the @nytimes.com. It ignores decades of evidence from police research, criminology, economics, etc. It's a barstool conversation based on a hazy recollection of college sociology. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/o...

Let’s get tough on crime by solving more crimes Choosing between certainty and punishment

It is hard to think of an idea with more staying power, and one with less empirical support, than the idea that the way to be tough on crime is to lock lots of people up. What I want to propose here is a much more effective way to be tough on crime. open.substack.com/pub/johnkrom...

It’s interesting that there seems to have been some inflation in the estimates too: it was 18,000, then 18,500, now I see 19,000. It’s totally plausible there is an increase, but, you’d think we’d *know* this!

I have say, I never thought about this. That’s a helluva good insight!