"Jails, Sheriffs, and Carceral Policymaking" The title of this post is the title of this recent paper authored by Aaron Littman just published in the Vanderbilt Law Review. Here is its abstract: The machinery of mass incarceration in America is huge, intricate, and destructive. To understand it and to tame it, scholars and activists look for its levers of power — where are they, who holds them, and what motivates them? This much we know: legislators criminalize, police arrest, prosecutors charge, judges sentence, prison officials confine, and probation and parole officials manage release. As this Article reveals, jailers, too, have their hands on the controls. The sheriffs who run jails — along with the county commissioners who fund them — have tremendous but unrecognized power over the size and shape of our criminal legal system, particularly in rural areas and for people accused or convicted of low-level crimes.