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John Roman

@johnkroman.bsky.social

1.1K followers 550 following 340 posts

Director, Center on Public Safety and Justice, NORC at the University of Chicago. Essays: https://johnkroman.substack.com/.

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John Romano was an American physician, psychiatrist, and educator whose major interest was in medical education and the important relationship between psychiatry and medicine. He founded the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester and served as chairman from 1946 to 1971. He published over 200 scientific papers and served on several editorial boards including the Journal of Psychiatric Research. .. more

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John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Nov 19

Greeting new Bluesky people! And welcome. Here are 100 ideas for reducing crime and improving safety without more police and prisons. johnkroman.substack.com/p/100-ideas-... And a summary version at Vital City: www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/twe...

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John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · 8d

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

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Substack

The Sacred and the Profane

Reductive debates about crime get us nowhere Reductive debates about crime get us nowhere

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John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · 20d

It’s true though!!

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

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · 20d

Once again, Gen X is forgotten.

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John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · 22d

I would be happy to accept that title!

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · 29d

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.

Ryan Estrada @ryanestrada.com · Sep 6

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.

OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · 29d

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.

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Reposted by Cas Mudde, Anna O. Law, Marc Lynch , and 35 more Cas Mudde, Anna O. Law, Marc Lynch, Kim L. Scheppele, Norbert Schwarz, Dorothy Bishop, Peter Thorne, Jonathan A. Foley, Samuel L. Perry, Jonathan Wolff, Ian Hall, Rebecca Ruth Gould, Ralf Michaels, Christian E. Weller, Gerry Canavan, Mirco Tonin, Silvia Secchi, Caroline T. Schroeder, Andrew Jacobs, Serge Egelman, Justin Lewis, Amy W. Ando, Christine Kooi, Michael H. Whitworth, Michael D. McDonald, Jason Lyall, Nancy K. Baym, Aija Leiponen, David Bartram, Wolfgang Huber, Ann Bartow, Stefan C. Aykut, James Connelly, Julie Novkov, Annette Yoshiko Reed, John Roman, Colin Woodard, Catherine Spooner

Ryan Estrada @ryanestrada.com · Sep 6

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

230 9.8K 12K

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Sep 5

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

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John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Sep 3

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...

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...

www.forbes.com

Reposted by Jeffrey A. Butts

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Sep 2

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...

When people say crime is a big problem, are they really talking about crime?

Sometimes, but not always

open.substack.com

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Substack

When people say crime is a big problem, are they really talking about crime?

Sometimes, but not always For those who study crime, it is a head-scratching moment. Opinion polls show that people are deeply worried about public safety in America and are atypically open to radical approaches to fighting crime, including militarized policing. At the same time, crime continues to decline at unprecedented rates and is already at historically low levels. It’s ha…

Reposts 0 Sep 2

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Sep 1

This post was your magnum opus. Bravo.

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Aug 25

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

On the YIMBY-Abundance Crime Blind Spot

Nudging the pro-city crowd toward more effective crime policy

open.substack.com

Substack

On the YIMBY-Abundance Crime Blind Spot

Nudging the pro-city crowd toward more effective crime policy A few housekeeping notes before we dive in. We’ve hit a milestone of sorts here at External Processing, enrolling our 1,000th subscriber. Despite the modest nature of this accomplishment, this has caused some soul-searching about the nature of a meaningful life and the External Processing blog’s role in it, or at least in mine. Specifically, I continue …

Reposts 0 Aug 25

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Aug 18

Bravo!

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Aug 14

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.

Emily Badger @emmbadger.bsky.social · Aug 14

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...

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

www.nytimes.com

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John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Aug 14

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...

Explaining the COVID Violence Spike and the Roaring Crime Decline

Four Reasons for the Historic Beginning to the 2020s

johnkroman.substack.com

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Aug 14

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...

Opinion | Crime Keeps Falling. Here’s Why.

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by John Roman

Emily Badger @emmbadger.bsky.social · Aug 14

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

www.nytimes.com

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John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Aug 4

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...

Let’s get tough on crime by solving more crimes

Choosing between certainty and punishment

open.substack.com

Substack

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. The idea is simple and intuitive: we should lock up the bad guys for as long as we can to keep our streets safe. The trick is that we are pretty bad at identifying the bad guys, so we …

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John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Jul 29

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!

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Jul 29

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

Substack

New CDC Data Shows a Substantial Decline in Gun Violence in 2024

Gun Violence Declines are Accelerating and Greater (Local) State Capacity is the Reason Gun Violence Declines are Accelerating and Greater (Local) State Capacity is the Reason

Reposts 0 Jul 27

Substack

On Making Cost-Benefit Useful

How to Help Policymakers Care About your Results In this essay, I will propose a relatively novel way of thinking about analyzing program success as an input to policymaking. My take is that the answers provided by conventional program evaluation and policy analysis are inadequate in developing research findings that policymakers can act on. In the best-case scenario, research develops answers that ar…

Reposts 0 Jul 13

John Roman @johnkroman.bsky.social · Jul 8

Disorder has declined a lot since 2020. And it appears that a big increase in the size of local governments around the country is driving the change. This upends the long-held idea that disorder is driven almost exclusively by local policy. open.substack.com/pub/johnkrom...

Disorder is Declining Along with Violence

All crime is not local

open.substack.com

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