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Nazgol Ghandnoosh

Senior Research Analyst, The Sentencing Project
Areas of Expertise:
  • Criminal Justice
  • Race & Ethnicity

Connect with Nazgol

(202) 628-0871

About Nazgol

Ghandnoosh conducts and synthesizes research on criminal justice policies. She has written about the racial gap in punitiveness, efforts to reduce racial disparities in criminal justice outcomes, and the dramatic reductions in New York, New Jersey, and California’s prison populations. Her current projects underscore the need for reforming severe sentences. Her dissertation examined resistance to mass incarceration through an in-depth study of a South Los Angeles-based group advocating for higher parole rates for term-to-life prisoners.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

Policy Proposal: Instate 15-Year Maximum Wait for Parole Eligibility

SSN Memo,

How America Can Correct Systematic Racial Biases in Criminal Justice

SSN Key Findings Brief,

In the News

Nazgol Ghandnoosh's research on incarceration policies discussed in Alan Neuhauser, "DOJ Touts 10-Year Drop in Incarceration Rates," US News and World Report, April 25, 2019.
Nazgol Ghandnoosh's research on New Hampshire prisons dealing with opioid crisis discussed in Ben Henry, "Part 2: One Month Out," NHPR, February 22, 2019.
"Stiffening Immigration Enforcement is not the Answer to Reducing Crime," Nazgol Ghandnoosh (with Alex Nowrasteh), The Hill, April 7, 2017.
"Maryland Should Make Parole a Meaningful Part of Sentencing Again," Nazgol Ghandnoosh, The Washington Post, February 13, 2017.
Nazgol Ghandnoosh quoted on the development of the "Prisons Today" exhibit at Eastern State Penitentiary in Amy McKeever, "Eastern State Penitentiary and the Critique of Mass Incarceration" Pacific Standard, July 19, 2016.
Guest to discuss how distortions in media crime coverage feed implicit racial biases on On the Media: Racial Bias in Crime Reporting, Nazgol Ghandnoosh, June 5, 2015.
"Becoming Smart on Crime," Nazgol Ghandnoosh, The News-Gazette, April 26, 2015.
"It Starts off as an Arrest and Things Get out of Control’: Why Broken Windows Must be Scaled Back," Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Interview with Elias Isquith, Salon, February 12, 2015.
"Life, with a Possibility of Blocked Parole," Nazgol Ghandnoosh, San Francisco Daily Journal, September 25, 2014.
Guest to discuss female incarceration on Arise America: Female Prison Population, Nazgol Ghandnoosh, August 6, 2014.
Nazgol Ghandnoosh quoted on consequences of using past records as a measure of risk in Renee Lewis, "Holder: Data-Driven Sentencing ‘Unfair’’ to Minorities" Al Jazeera America, August 1, 2014.
Nazgol Ghandnoosh quoted on scale of drug offenses in Gilman Halsted, "Is It True That State Prisons are Filled with Nonviolent Drug Offenders?" Wisconsin Public Radio, July 7, 2014.
"Can We Wait 88 Years to End Mass Incarceration?," Nazgol Ghandnoosh (with Marc Mauer), Huffington Post, December 20, 2013.

Publications

"Immigration and Public Safety," (with Josh Rovner), The Sentencing Project, 2017.

Argues that policies further restricting immigration are ineffective crime-control strategies because foreign-born residents of the United States commit crime less often than native-born citizens.

"Delaying a Second Chance: The Declining Prospects for Parole on Life Sentences," The Sentencing Project, 2017.

Demonstrates that people serving parole-eligible life sentences are imprisoned longer than their counterparts in the past. Identifies four factors driving this growth in prison terms based on data from 31 states and the federal government for available years since 1980.

"Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity in the Criminal Justice System," The Sentencing Project, February 2015.

Highlights initiatives in more than 20 states designed to address the four causes of racially unequal outcomes in the criminal justice system.

"Race and Punishment: Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support for Punitive Policies," The Sentencing Project, September 2014.

Synthesizes two decades of research revealing that white Americans’ strong association of crime with African Americans and Latinos is related to their greater support for punitive policies.

"Fewer Prisoners, Less Crime: A Tale of Three States," (with Marc Mauer), The Sentencing Project, July 2014.

Profiles the experiences of three states – New York, New Jersey, and California – that have reduced their prison populations by about 25% in the past decade while seeing their crime rates generally decline at a faster pace than the national average.