Rafael A. Mangual - Why Killers Walk While Cops Go to Prison | Part 1

About this episode

Rafael A. Mangual discusses the disparities in criminal justice outcomes between police officers and violent offenders in New York.

Rafael A. Mangual is a senior fellow and head of research at the Manhattan Institute's Policing and Public Safety Initiative, and the author of "Criminal [In]Justice." He is one of the most data-driven and unsparing voices in the national debate on criminal justice policy - a lawyer by training who chose research over the courtroom. In Part 1 of this conversation, Mangual opens with the two New York cases that frame his entire body of work. NYPD Sergeant Eric Duran was convicted of manslaughter for throwing an empty cooler at a fleeing drug suspect during a buy-bust operation. In the same city, a man calling himself Lucifer slashed three elderly strangers at Grand Central Station despite 13 prior arrests - including a previous knife attack - and remained free. Mangual explains these outcomes are not contradictions but the predictable result of an ideology that treats police as agents of corrupt power while extending unlimited leniency to violent offenders. Drawing on peer-reviewed research, Mangual walks through the Pareto distribution of criminal offending, a finding replicated in every jurisdiction worldwide, showing that a tiny fraction of repeat offenders commit the vast…

People in this episode

Guest: Rafael A. Mangual

Topics covered

• criminal justice
• policing
• recidivism
• violent crime
• New York cases
• public safety

Keywords

• criminal justice policy
• NYPD
• recidivism data
• Clean Slate Act
• violent offenders

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Manhattan Institute

Books & works: Criminal [In]Justice

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