Can Science Fix Criminal Justice?

America's criminal justice debate usually gets reduced to two options: abolish the system or lock everyone up forever. Economist Jennifer Doleac thinks the data point somewhere else entirely. In this episode, Michael Shermer speaks with Doleac about what rigorous research can tell us about crime, punishment, deterrence, prison reform, and public safety. Doleac argues that America has built much of its criminal justice system backwards: too little certainty of being caught, too much faith in long prison sentences, and not enough testing of what actually works. Jennifer Doleac is the Executive Vice President of Criminal Justice at Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy focused on evidence-based policy. Before that, she spent over a decade as an economics professor, conducting academic research. She is a leading expert on the economics of crime and discrimination, and a vocal proponent of using rigorous research to inform policy. She frequently writes for outlets including The Washington Post , TIME , and Bloomberg Opinion , and she hosts the Probable Causation podcast on law, economics, and crime. Doleac holds a PhD in Economics from Stanford University. Her new book is The Science of Second Chances: A Revolution in Criminal Justice .

You can listen to Can Science Fix Criminal Justice? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Can Science Fix Criminal Justice? is an episode from The Michael Shermer Show by Michael Shermer.

This episode is 01:06:35 long.

This episode was published on May 29, 2026.

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