• Epstein emails reveal elite connections: Messages show Jeffrey Epstein's ties to figures across politics, business, academia, and media, including Trump, Summers, Chomsky, and others.
• Elite network disregards suffering: Group linked to financial crises, wars, inequality, and other harms, enabling Epstein's post-conviction rehabilitation.
• "Epstein class" defined: Modern power elite with nomadic lifestyles, world citizenship, blending governing, profiting, thinking, and philanthropy.
• Communication rituals: Emails start with whereabouts updates like travel plans to New York, Davos, facilitating meetings and connections.
• Barter of information: Exchanges of nonpublic insights, insider tips on politics, finance, and conferences, valued over public knowledge.
• Capital laundering dynamics: Trading money for prestige, intel for access, with Epstein gaining reputation via associations like Summers and New.
• Status and loyalty markers: Terseness in replies signals power; network loyalty trumps ideological clashes, prioritizing self-preservation.
• Examples with key figures: Interactions include Summers seeking tips, Ruemmler's job advice and casual observations, highlighting elite indifference.

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As journalists comb through the Epstein emails, surfacing the name of one fawning luminary after another, there is a collective whisper of “How could they?” How could such eminent people, belonging to such prestigious institutions, succumb to this?

A close read of the thousands of messages makes it less surprising. When Jeffrey Epstein, a financier turned convicted sex offender, needed friends to rehabilitate him, he knew where to turn: a power elite practiced at disregarding pain.

At the dark heart of this story is a sex criminal and his victims — and his enmeshment with President Trump. But it is also a tale about a powerful social network in which some, depending on what they knew, were perhaps able to look away because they had learned to look away from so much other abuse and suffering: the financial meltdowns some in the network helped trigger, the misbegotten wars some in the network pushed, the overdose crisis some of them enabled, the monopolies they defended, the inequality they turbocharged, the housing crisis they milked, the technologies they failed to protect people against.

The Epstein story is resonating with a broader swath of the public than most stories now do, and some in the establishment worry. When Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, speaks of an “Epstein class,” isn’t that dangerous? Isn’t that class warfare?

But the intuitions of the public are right. People are right to sense that, as the emails lay bare, there is a highly private merito-aristocracy at the intersection of government and business, lobbying, philanthropy, start-ups, academia, science, high finance and media that all too often takes care of its own more than the common good. They are right to resent that there are infinite second chances for members of this group even as so many Americans are deprived of first chances. They are right that their pleas often go unheard, whether they are being evicted, gouged, foreclosed on, A.I.-obsolesced — or, yes, raped.

It is no accident that this was the social milieu that took Mr. Epstein in. His reinvention, after he pleaded guilty to prostitution-related charges in Florida in 2008**,** would never have been possible without this often anti-democratic, self-congratulatory elite, which, even when it didn’t traffic people, took the world for a ride.

The emails, in my view, together sketch a devastating epistolary portrait of how our social order functions, and for whom. Saying that isn’t extreme. The way this elite operates is.

The idea of an Epstein class is helpful because one can be misled by the range of people to whom Mr. Epstein ingratiated himself. Republicans. Democrats. Businesspeople. Diplomats. Philanthropists. Healers. Professors. Royals. Superlawyers. A person he emailed at one moment was often at war with the ideas of another correspondent — a Lawrence Summers to a Steve Bannon, a Deepak Chopra to a scientist skeptical of all spirituality, a Peter Thiel to a Noam Chomsky. This diversity masked a deeper solidarity.

What his correspondents tended to share was membership in a distinctly modern elite: a ruling class in which 40,000-foot nomadism, world citizenship and having just landed back from Dubai lend the glow that deep roots once provided; in which academic intellect is prized the way pedigree once was; in which ancient caste boundaries have melted to allow rotation among, or simultaneous pursuit of, governing, profiting, thinking and giving back. Some members, like Mr. Summers, are embedded in all aspects of it; others, less so.

If this neoliberal-era power elite remains poorly understood, it may be because it is not just a financial elite or an educated elite, a noblesse-oblige elite, a political elite or a narrative-making elite; it straddles all of these, lucratively and persuaded of its own good intentions. If it’s a jet set, it’s a carbon-offset-private-jet set. After all, flying commercial won’t get you from your Davos breakfast on empowering African girls with credit cards to your crypto-for-good dinner in Aspen.

Many of the Epstein emails begin with a seemingly banal rite that, the more I read, took on greater meaning: the whereabouts update and inquiry. In the Epstein class, emails often begin and end with pings of echolocation. “Just got to New York — love to meet, brainstorm,” the banker Robert Kuhn wrote to Mr. Epstein. “i’m in wed, fri. edelman?” Mr. Epstein wrote to the billionaire Thomas Pritzker (it is unclear if he meant a person, corporation or convening). To Lawrence Krauss, a physicist in Arizona: “noam is going to tucson on the 7th. will you be around.” Mr. Chopra wrote to say he would be in New York, first speaking, then going “for silence.” Gino Yu, a game developer, announced travel plans involving Tulum, Davos and the D.L.D. (Digital Life Design) conference — an Epstein-class hat trick.

Landings and takeoffs, comings and goings, speaking engagements and silent retreats — members of this group relentlessly track one another’s passages through JFK, LHR, NRT and airports you’ve never even heard of. Whereabouts are the pheromones of this elite. They occasion the connection-making and information barter that are its lifeblood. If “Have you eaten?” was a traditional Chinese greeting, “Where are you today?” is the Epstein-class query.

Their loyalty, it appears, is less downward to people and communities than horizontal to fellow members of their borderless network. Back in 2016, Theresa May, then the prime minister of Britain, seemed to capture their essence: “If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.” Mr. Epstein’s correspondents come alive far from home, freed from obligations, in the air, ready to connect.

And the payoff can be real. Maintain, as Mr. Epstein did, a grandmother-like radar of what a thousand people are doing tomorrow and where, and you can introduce a correspondent needing a lending partner to someone you’re seeing today. Or let Ehud Barak know a Rothschild has the flu. Or offer someone else a jet ride back to New York and reward the journalist who tipped you off by setting him up to meet a Saudi royal.

But the whereabouts missive is just the first flush of connection. Motion is the flirtation; actual information, the consummation.

How did Mr. Epstein manage to pull so many strangers close? The emails reveal a barter economy of nonpublic information that was a big draw. This is not a world where you bring a bottle of wine to dinner and that’s it. You bring what financiers call “edge” — proprietary insight, inside information, a unique takeaway from a conference, a counterintuitive prediction about A.I., a snippet of conversation with a lawmaker, a foretaste of tomorrow’s news.

What the Epstein class understands is that the more accessible information becomes, the more precious nonpublic information is. The more everybody insta-broadcasts opinions, the dearer is the closely held take. The emails are a private, bilateral social media for people who can’t or won’t post: an archipelago of single-subscriber Substacks. And in the need to maintain relevance by offering edge, a reader detects thirst and swagger, desperateness and swanning.

“Saw Matt C with DJT at golf tournament I know why he was there,” Nicholas Ribis, a former Trump Hotel executive, wrote to Mr. Epstein, making what couples therapists call a bid for attention. Jes Staley, then a top banking executive, casually mentioned a dinner with George Tenet, the former Central Intelligence Agency director, and got the reaction he probably hoped for: “how was tenet.” Mr. Summers laid bait by mentioning meetings with people at SoftBank and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Mr. Epstein nibbled: “anyone stand out?” Then Mr. Summers could offer proprietary intel. On it went: What are people saying? Who are you hearing for F.B.I. director? Should I drop your name to Bill Clinton?

Sometimes these people give the impression that their minds would be blown by a newspaper. Mr. Kuhn wrote to Mr. Epstein: “Love to get your sense of Trump’s administration, policies.” And while it may seem strange to rely on Mr. Epstein for political analysis when you can visit any number of websites, for this class, insight’s value varies inversely with the number of recipients. And the ultimate flex is getting insider intel and shrugging: “Nthg revolutionary really,” the French banker Ariane de Rothschild wrote during a meeting with Portugal’s prime minister.

Nomadic bat signals get things going, and edge keeps them flowing, while underneath a deeper exchange is at work. The smart need money; the rich want to seem smart; the staid seek adjacency to what Mr. Summers called “life among the lucrative and louche”; and Mr. Epstein needed to wash his name using blue-chip people who could be forgiving about infractions against the less powerful. Each has some form of capital and seeks to trade. The business is laundering capital — money into prestige, prestige into fun, fun into intel, intel into money.

Mr. Summers wrote to Mr. Epstein: “U r wall st tough guy w intellectual curiosity.” Mr. Epstein replied: “And you an interllectual with a Wall Street curiosity.”

In another email, Mr. Epstein offered typo-strewn and false musings on climate science to Mr. Krauss, including that Canada perhaps favored global warming, since it’s cold (it doesn’t), and that the South Pole is actually getting colder (it’s melting rapidly). Mr. Krauss let Mr. Epstein indulge in his rich-man theorizing while offering a tactful correction and a hint that more research funding would help.

For this modern elite, seeming smart is what inheriting land used to be: a guarantor of opened doors. A shared hyperlink can’t stand alone; your unique spin must be applied. Mr. Krauss sends his New Yorker article on militant atheism; Mr. Chomsky sends a multiparagraph reply; Mr. Epstein dashes off: “I think religion plays a major positive role in many lives. . i dont like fanaticism on either side. . sorry.” This somehow leads to a suggestion that Mr. Krauss bring the actor Johnny Depp to Mr. Epstein’s private island.

Again and again, scholarly types lower themselves to offer previews of their research or inquiries into Mr. Epstein’s “ideas.” “Maybe climate change is a good way of dealing with overpopulation,” muses Joscha Bach, a German cognitive scientist.

The nature of this omnidirectional capital exchange comes into special focus in the triangle of emails among Mr. Epstein, Mr. Summers and his wife, Elisa New. Mr. Summers seemingly benefited from Mr. Epstein’s hosting, tip-offs, semi-insight into Trumpworld and, most grossly, dating advice many years into his marriage.

Ms. New sought Mr. Epstein’s help contacting Woody Allen and revising her emails to invite people on her televised poetry show. Mr. Epstein tutored her in elite mores and motives: Don’t say, Come on my show; say, Join Serena Williams, Bill Clinton and Shaq in coming on my show. Mr. Epstein reaped the benefits of smarts by association in hanging around them, of the reputation cleanse of affiliation with Harvard professors and a former Treasury secretary, and of getting to cosplay as statesman, once sending an unsolicited intro email to Mr. Summers and a Senegalese politician, Karim Wade, who, Mr. Epstein informed Mr. Summers, is “the most charismatic and rational of all the africans and has there respect.” There are 1.5 billion people and 54 countries in Africa.

This class has its status games. One is, when getting a tip, to block the blessing by saying you already know. Another is to apologize for busyness by invoking centrality — “trump related issues occupying my time.” When an intro is offered, the coldest reply is “no.” The ultimate power move is from Mohamed Waheed Hassan of the Maldives, whose emails ended: “Sent from President’s iPad.”

If you were an alien landing on Earth and the first thing you saw was the Epstein emails, you could gauge status by spelling, grammar, punctuation. Usage is inversely related to power in this network. The earnest scientists and scholars type neatly. The wealthy and powerful reply tersely, with misspellings, erratic spacing, stray commas.

The status games belie a truth, though: These people are on the same team. On air, they might clash. They promote opposite policies. Some in the network profess anguish over what others in the network are doing. But the emails depict a group whose highest commitment is to their own permanence in the class that decides things. When principles conflict with staying in the network, the network wins.

Mr. Epstein may despise what Mr. Trump is doing, but he still hangs with Steve Bannon, the Trump whisperer and attack dog, seeking help on crypto regulation. Michael Wolff is a journalist, but that doesn’t stop him from advising Mr. Epstein on his public image. Kenneth Starr, who once doggedly pursued sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Clinton, reinvented himself as a defender of Mr. Epstein. These are permanent survivors who will profit when things are going this way and then profit again when they turn.

“What team are you pulling for?” Linda Stone, a retired Microsoft executive, asked Mr. Epstein just before the 2016 election.

“none,” he replied.

In one email, he commiserates with Mr. Wolff about Mr. Bannon’s rhetoric; in another, he invites Mr. Bannon over and suggests an additional guest — Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as President Barack Obama’s White House counsel.

His exchanges with Ms. Ruemmler are especially striking — not for the level of horridness, but for how they portray this network at its most shape-shiftingly self-preservational, and most indifferent to the human beings below.

Like so many, she had gone from Obama-era public service to private legal practice, eventually becoming the chief lawyer for Goldman Sachs. That people move from representing the presidency to representing banks is so normal that we forget the costs: the private job done with the savvy to outfox one’s former public-sector colleagues, the public job done gently to keep open doors.

In some exchanges in 2014, Ms. Ruemmler appears to be contemplating a job offer: attorney general of the United States, according to contemporary reports. And who does she seek advice from? A convicted sex offender.

In another email, Mr. Epstein asks a legal question about whether Mr. Trump can declare a national emergency to build a border wall. She responds that a prospective employer has offered her a $2 million signing bonus. The glide from tyranny to bonus distills a core truth: Regardless of what happens, the members of this social network will be fine.

Ms. Ruemmler told Mr. Epstein she was going to New York one day. “I will then stop to pee and get gas at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, will observe all of the people there who are at least 100 pounds overweight, will have a mild panic attack as a result of the observation, and will then decide that I am not eating another bite of food for the rest of my life out of fear that I will end up like one of these people,” she wrote in 2015.

But in the class of permanent survivors, today’s jump scare may yield to tomorrow’s opportunity. A few years after she joined the company, Goldman Sachs declared anti-obesity drugs a “$100 billion opportunity.”

Generally, you can’t read other people’s emails. Powerful people have private servers, I.T. staffs, lawyers. When you get a rare glimpse into how they actually think and view the world, what they actually are after, heed Maya Angelou: Believe them.

American democracy today is in a dangerous place. The Epstein emails are a kind of prequel to the present. This is what these powerful people, in this mesh of institutions and communities, were thinking and doing — taking care of one another instead of the general welfare — before it got really bad.

This era has seen a surge in belief in conspiracy theories, including about Mr. Epstein, because of an underlying intuition people have that is, in fact, correct: The country often seems to be run not for the benefit of most of us.

Shaming the public as rubes for succumbing to conspiracy theories misses what people are trying to tell us: They no longer feel included in the work of choosing their future. On matters small and big, from the price of eggs to whether the sexual abuse of children matters, what they sense is a sneering indifference. And a knack for looking away.

Now the people who capitalized on the revolt against an indifferent American elite are in power, and, shock of all shocks, they are even more indifferent than anyone who came before them. The clubby deal-making and moral racketeering of the Epstein class is now the United States’ governing philosophy.

In spite of that, the unfathomably brave survivors who have come forward to testify to their abuse have landed the first real punch against Mr. Trump. In their solidarity, their devotion to the truth and their insistence on a country that listens when people on the wrong end of power cry for help, they shame the great indifference from above. They point us to other ways of relating.

Source photographs by Cynthia Johnson, Tim Sloan, William Philpott, Charles Ommanney, Win McNamee, Wally McNamee, Bill Olive, Rick Friedman and Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Anand Giridharadas is the author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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• Documentary Premise: "The Stringer" investigates authorship of "Napalm Girl" photo from Vietnam War, concluding Nick Ut did not take it and Nguyen Nghe did.
• Carl Robinson's Account: AP photo editor claims Horst Faas instructed crediting the photo to Ut despite rejection over nudity.
• Robinson's Views: Expressed regret over publishing photo, called it "pedo war porn," showed bitterness toward Ut and AP after dismissal.
• Horst Faas Allegations: Accused of taking credit for Vietnamese stringers' photos; loyalty to Ut linked to Ut's brother's death.
• Nguyen Nghe's Claim: States he took photo, brother-in-law delivered film to AP for $20; trained photographer with U.S. media experience.
• Nick Ut's Record: Portfolio includes other iconic images; no additional photos shown from Nghe despite his credentials.
• Reenactment Findings: Forensic recreation using satellite image and ITN footage positions Ut away from photo scene.
• Camera Evidence: Negatives suggest Pentax used, not Ut's claimed Leica; AP investigation supports this.

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The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo, which lands on Netflix this week, opens with a line implying Nick Ut is a liar: “What you do know is what you didn’t take.” But is that really true? I’ve always thought the inverse makes more sense.

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SPOILER WARNING: This article contains many spoilers for The Stringer.

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When a photographer takes a picture, the shutter flips up, rendering them blind for a millisecond. You don’t know exactly what you’ve shot until you see the photo. Therefore, when a photographer sees the frame they wanted in their viewfinder, they know they’ve missed it because the shutter wasn’t up. So perhaps the more accurate saying would be: “What you do know is what you missed.”

It’s one of the many questionable claims and statements made by The Stringer, a documentary examining the true authorship of The Terror of War, colloquially known as Napalm Girl. One of the Vietnam War’s most famous images, it shows a terrified Kim Phuc and her brother running through the village of Trang Bang on June 8, 1972, just after it had been bombed. Phuc had removed her clothes because the napalm was searing her back.

Associated Press

Produced by the VII Foundation and led by photojournalist Gary Knight, the documentary takes viewers on a gripping investigation that arrives at a devastating conclusion: photographer Nick Ut did not take the photo for which he won a Pulitzer Prize and unknown stringer Nguyen Nghe is the true author of the photo.

A still from The Stringer that shows freelancer Nguyen Thanh Nghe at the scene of Napalm Girl.

Origin of the Claims: Carl Robinson

The Stringer came about because of one person: Carl Robinson. He was the photo editor at the Saigon Bureau the day the photos from Trang Bang arrived. Before the documentary, Robinson was best known as the man who rejected the famous photo because of its full-frontal nudity.

The established lore of Napalm Girl is that when AP darkroom editor Yuichi ‘Jackson’ Ishizaki developed the photo, he and Robinson got into an argument over whether the photo should be transmitted to the media because it showed Kim Phuc fully naked. Ishizaki told an office employee to go and fetch the chief of photos in Saigon, Horst Faas, to settle the argument. Faas immediately saw the power of the photo and sided with Ishizaki.

It was when Robinson was typing up the caption and credit information that he says Faas leaned in his ear and said, “Nick Ut. Make it Nick Ut.” Ishizaki, Faas, and a darkroom technician called Huan were all present with Robinson in the room that day. All are now dead apart from Robinson.

Robinson working at AP’s Saigon Bureau. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

That Robinson disagreed with the decision to publish Napalm Girl is conveniently omitted from The Stringer. To this day, Robinson still believes AP made the wrong call wiring the image despite the undoubted impact the photo had; it became an anti-war symbol, and President Richard Nixon even mused whether the photo was “fixed.”

In an article for The Australian written this year, Robinson maintains the photo should never have been published, saying that other news organizations had “more discretion” by leaving the distressing images of Kim Phuc on the cutting room floor.

In a 2005 interview, Robinson reportedly said AP had “created a monster” by focusing too much on Kim Phuc, and not on all of the war’s victims. In 2022, he called the photo “pedo war porn” and railed against Ut, whom he called a “false idol.” In 2024, Robinson directed yet more anger against Ut, saying he “has gone all Hollywood, I don’t like that.”

Robinson was dismissed from AP in 1978 for unknown reasons. In his autobiography, he wrote that he had a “simmering anger, resentment, and bitterness, especially toward AP.”

None of the above is mentioned or brought up in The Stringer. The film instead presents Robinson as a man who has been wrestling with his conscience for 50 years because of the great secret that he holds.

Gary Knight, left, and Carl Robinson. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

Putting aside the fact that most would argue Robinson made the wrong call on the most important photo he ever worked on and the fact he has expressed bitterness toward Ut and Faas, what other evidence does Robinson have? He says it was an “open secret” among Vietnamese staff at AP and NBC that the photo had been wrongly attributed, a claim disputed by others who were working in Saigon. He also claims that he raised the issue repeatedly to colleagues and directly to Ut himself. There are some Vietnam War hacks in the documentary who back up Robinson’s claims, but there are others who say they’ve never heard of them, or say they’ve heard of them but dismiss them.

Horst Faas

In an attempt to explain what motivated Faas to change the credit on the photo, the film’s protagonist, Knight, explores Ut’s brother, who was killed while on assignment for Faas, which made the photo editor loyal to Ut.

“Giving this image to Ut wouldn’t make up for his brother’s death, but is it possible Faas thought it would make Ut more secure at AP?” Knight writes in an article for Rolling Stone.

Knight also highlights the photo agency battle playing out in Saigon; AP was reportedly “losing the play” to UPI in 1972. “This was not a moment for an ‘icon of all time’ to be transmitted with the byline of a stringer,” says Knight.

Horst Faas. | Wikipedia

The AP’s chief of photos in Saigon, Horst Faas, is perhaps the most famous photographer of the Vietnam War. Faas, originally from Germany, spent more time in Vietnam than any other foreign journalist and his portfolio — including his iconic portrait of a young American soldier bearing a “War is Hell” headband — is the stuff of legend.

But The Stringer takes aim at Faas more than anyone else in the film. Knight makes the incendiary claim that Faas was regularly in the business of taking photos from local Vietnamese stringers and putting his own credit on them. In the Rolling Stone article, Knight says that fellow photojournalist legend Tim Page, with whom Faas was friends, told him that Faas would take credit for pictures that weren’t his. Page died in 2022.

“Had Faas grown to rationalize occasionally changing the credit on photographs over nearly a decade of war?” Knight asks. “Would this explain how he might have taken something from a stringer he didn’t know, given AP and the younger brother of his dead colleague the kudos, and enhanced his standing at the agency?”

Nguyen Nghe – The Stringer

The documentary goes into detail about the hunt for Nguyen Nghe, which it names as the real author of The Terror of War. Nghe is now an elderly man in ill-health, but he and his family strongly believe that he is the photographer of Napalm Girl.

The film explains that Nghe was a media professional who had even received training in the United States after he joined the South Vietnamese army.

Nguyen Thanh Nghe as a young man. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

Nghe’s story is this: he took the famous photo in Trang Bang and his brother-in-law, Tran Van Than, who worked for NBC, took the film to the AP office and was paid $20 for it while also being given an 8×10 print of the image. Six months later, he heard about the photo’s popularity and its misattribution, but when he went to find the print AP gave him, his wife had thrown it in the trash.

“Why do you have this photo?” Nghe’s wife reportedly asked him. This is vexing; if Nghe was a trained photographer and freelancing for Western media while an almighty war is raging in the country you live in, then surely it would be obvious to his wife why he had a photo like that?

And if it was an open secret among the media in Vietnam that Ut didn’t take the photo, then wouldn’t Nghe have been aware of the photo and the impact it was having immediately? After all, his brother-in-law worked next door to AP for NBC.

Nguyen Nghe, pictured, says he is the true author of the photo. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

A still from The Stringer that shows freelancer Nguyen Nghe at the scene of Napalm Girl.

And then there are Nghe’s credentials. The film goes out of its way to highlight his U.S. media training — even flashing his film lab certificates on screen. Knight goes so far as to claim that Nghe was the “most accomplished photographer” on the road that day, a blatant lie. Yet despite this emphasis, the film never shows a single additional photograph taken by him. In fact, Nghe told the AP via email that Napalm Girl was the only image he ever sold to any international outlet, which directly contradicts the film’s own claims.

Nick Ut

Throughout The Stringer, Ut is portrayed as the man who knows he’s lying. But while Ut is best known for Napalm Girl, he has a remarkable portfolio featuring other famous photos including Paris Hilton crying the back of a police car, James Hunt and Niki Lauda smiling together before the famous crescendo of the 1976 Formula 1 season immortalized in the movie Rush, and photos of OJ Simpson arriving at court.

Contrast this with Nghe: the documentary can’t produce a single other photograph he took. Like many Vietnamese photographers, Nghe would have lost a great deal during the Fall of Saigon in 1975. But the absence of any other work is difficult to comprehend.

The Reenactment

Ultimately, the first two-thirds of The Stringer is a game of he said, she said. But in case the viewer was not yet convinced, Knight hires a team of experts to forensically recreate June 8, 1972, and ultimately prove once and for all that Ut did not take the Napalm Girl photo.

The detailed recreation of that day is damning, as it appears to put Ut away from the scene of Napalm Girl.

Using a satellite image taken five months after the photo was taken, the team from Index Investigations attempts to map out the sequence of events. But while landmarks and distances are presented as fact, AP says it is impossible to distinguish the exact locations and measurements. At the very least, a margin of error should be built into the findings.

The reenactment that appears in the film. | INDEX Investigation/Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

A figure in the footage shot by British TV station ITN is key. If it is Ut, then it puts him far from the scene of the Napalm Girl photo. After a cut in the footage, we see Ut coming from that same direction, making it appear that he couldn’t have shot the photo.

But we don’t know how long that cut was. Unlike modern digital cameras, there are no timestamps or metadata. Crews working in the field had to be careful they didn’t run out of film. The children, who are all in shock, are zig-zagging around and stopping when they encounter people. It is therefore difficult to know the exact timing of their walk out of Trang Bang and impossible to know the media’s movements — including Nick Ut’s.

The Camera

Perhaps the most compelling piece of evidence that Ut did not take Napalm Girl is the mystery of the camera used to take the shot.

Ut himself has said that he was carrying four cameras that day: two Nikons and two Leicas. After forensically analyzing the surviving negatives, AP’s own investigation declared it was unlikely the photo was taken on a Leica, the camera that Ut has always said he used.

Instead, AP finds it likely that the photo was shot on a Pentax. This is because film that’s been run through a Pentax tends to have slightly rounded corners. Although Nikons can reportedly show similar characteristics.

A Pentax that could have shot ‘Napalm Girl’ is produced in ‘The Stringer’. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

The two surviving frames of ‘Napalm Girl’ held by the AP.

Ut says that he did carry a Pentax, namely his slain brother’s, which was gifted to him by his widow. But The Stringer spends surprisingly little time on this intriguing storyline. Perhaps that’s because it was AP that flagged this finding.

A Documentary Worth Watching, With Caveats

It’s impossible to prove with absolute certainty who took the photograph in Trang Bang that day. Personally, I believe there should be a statute of limitations on photo-credit disputes. Once fifty years have passed — and many of the key figures are no longer alive — you shouldn’t be able to drag the reputations of people or organizations you clearly hold a grudge against.

Since The Stringer presents a one-sided case with virtually no counter-arguments throughout the film, the vast Netflix audience will likely come away from the movie believing its version of events. Therefore, it is important to scrutinize the evidence put forward by Gary Knight and the VII Foundation.

To my mind, it’s utterly reprehensible that you would wait for the deaths of Horst Faas, Tim Page, Yuichi ‘Jackson’ Ishizaki, and Hal Buell before airing these claims. At best, it makes you a coward, at worst it’s malevolent.

Robinson is hardly an objective player here; his axe to grind is unmistakable, yet The Stringer barely acknowledges his animosity toward Ut and AP.

Faas has always been a giant of press photography and has a reputation for compassion. Yet the film assassinates his character, labeling him a plagiarist.

As for Nghe, it is difficult to know what to make of him. Perhaps he really has been cheated out of a lifetime of accolades and adoration. Or, perhaps he did take a photo of Kim Phuc that day, just not the one he thought he did.

At the end of the film, Nghe’s daughter, Jannie, miraculously discovers a copy of the Napalm Girl photo that their mother supposedly kept after discarding the original print. But the image is actually a newspaper clipping from years later, identifiable by the accompanying photo of an adult Kim Phuc. The VII Foundation tells PetaPixel that the cutting is from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, published in November 1982.

It’s a strange ending, and after feeling misled for so much of the film, I found myself questioning whether the moment was even genuine.

Should You Watch It?

Absolutely. The film offers a fascinating look at one of the most iconic moments in press photography. Its exploration of authorship, power and privilege, journalistic ethics, truth and memory, war, and dignity makes for an engaging and compelling hour and forty minutes.

• Facebook feud: Upper East Side moms in MUES and UES Mommas groups clash over Zohran Mamdani's mayoral win.
• Neighborhood vote: Area supported Andrew Cuomo by 24-point margin, prompting panic posts about fleeing NYC.
• Departure talks: Over 300 members discuss moving to New Jersey or Florida due to fears of radical policies.
• Safety concerns: Posts highlight worries over free buses leading to crime and Mamdani's stances on Hamas and Intifada.
• Counterarguments: Defenders label critics racist or Islamophobic, urge relaxation and dismiss actual moves.
• Media portrayal: New York magazine depicts groups as hysterical; residents like Robyn Reiter call it reductive and stereotypical.
• Group response: Moderator Valerie Iovino defends MUES diversity across politics, religion, and socioeconomic lines.
• Broader sentiment: Jewish activists like Samantha Ettus voice pre-WWII parallels; similar reactions on Upper West Side.

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Moms on Manhattan’s Upper East Side are embroiled in a Facebook feud over the mayoral election of Zohran Mamdani.

The private cyber scuffle spilled out into the pages of left-leaning New York magazine, which published a gossipy hit piece detailing how warring factions were battling it out on two private chat groups: Moms of the Upper East Side (MUES) and UES Mommas.

Barely were the ballots finally counted before hundreds of residents in the ritzy neighborhood — who voted for Andrew Cuomo by a 24-point margin — posted panicked messages saying they were frightened and fleeing, fearing the Democratic socialist’s radical policies would turn the Big Apple into 1930s Germany.

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The election of Zohran Mamdani sparked feuding among members of two popular, private Facebook groups for Upper East Side locals. REUTERS

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The ritzy neighborhood overwhelmingly voted for Andrew Cuomo, but members of the Facebook groups are divided over support for Mamdani. Posh Park Avenue is pictured. Olga Ginzburg for N.Y. Post

“With all my love for NYC I can’t believe 50% +- of the city voted for this joker,” one mortified momma moaned on the MUES page, which has more than 35,000 members and is usually reserved for advice about nannies, strollers and schools.

“Wondering who’s actually leaving? To where, Florida?” they then asked.

More than 300 locals responded, per the report, claiming they were considering moving to New Jersey or Florida following Mamdani’s win.

Meanwhile, others on the pages proclaimed that the incoming mayor’s proposal for free buses would result in riders being raped and murdered.

However, users on both Facebook pages fought back, accusing their neighbors of being overwrought and Islamophobic.

“It IS racist to just be mad that your new mayor is a Muslim,” one member maintained.

Meanwhile, one mom named April, who is a member of MUES, told New York magazine that the complainers were all talk and actually had no plans to leave Manhattan.

“No, you’re not (moving),” she stated. “Just relax.”

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Samantha Ettus, a Jewish activist, is not a member of the Upper East Side Facebook groups, but believes Mamdani will not be good for New York City. While the outspoken mom-of-three is willing to share her opinion on the record, many other moms are more reluctant to do so in the wake of the New York magazine piece.

The feuding between the two factions recently reached fever pitch, with the MUES group admins recently forced to instill a new rule for users.

“You may not attack or threaten other members while anonymous (or ever),” they implored.

Other more apolitical users urged calm, with one calling for all members to “get a collective grip.” 

The article featured posts by Upper East Side resident Robyn Reiter, a doctor of physical therapy and a single mother of a 13-year-old son.

 “We are literally terrified that a mayor who won’t condemn Hamas and won’t condemn the phrase ‘Globalize the Intifada’ is now running the city with the second largest Jewish population in the world,” Reiter wrote on the MUES page.

“It feels very immoral to me at this moment to pay tax dollars to a city that just elected someone who would love to see my people murdered,” she told New York magazine directly in a follow-up interview. “We’re all looking for an out, because I can’t jeopardize the safety of my son.”

She told the publication that she was considering leaving the Upper East Side and moving to Hoboken, New Jersey.

However, Reiter says she is disappointed with how she was portrayed in the article, telling The Post she found it inaccurate and reductive.

Reiter says she was forced to make her social media profiles private after the story came out “because of all the hatred I was getting.”

“I think I’m maxed out on this topic already, unfortunately,” she told The Post. “Instead of being portrayed as a smart and hardworking Jewish woman who has every reason to worry about the safety of my Jewish son in today’s New York, the article portrayed me (and others) as hysterical rich women having meltdowns.”

“I’m a single mother who works 10-hour days to support my son on my own,” she continued. “He attends public school because I can’t afford private [school] without significant financial aid. I am neither a ‘rich mom’ nor ‘going to war.'”

MUES moderator Valerie Iovino echoed Reiter’s disappointment in how the group was portrayed, telling The Post that the piece “reduced a group of 35,000+ diverse women — a small fraction of which engaged in an important debate and conversation — into caricatures based on their own stereotypes of Upper East Side women.”

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Members of MUES were upset by their depiction in the New York magazine article, saying they were stereotyped as privileged and out of touch.

“MUES includes members with a wide range of political views, and a full spectrum of religious, socioeconomic, and racial backgrounds,” Iovino further stated. “Yet they flattened the entire community into a two-dimensional image of Marie Antoinette clutching her pearls.”

In the wake of digital drama, many moms on the Upper East Side are reluctant to reveal their political persuasions publicly.

When The Post attempted to speak with one mom in the neighborhood, clad in a chic activewear outfit paired with a pair of large Gucci sunglasses and pushing a blanket-covered baby stroller, she quickly dismissed a request for comment.

Although she was cautious not to go on the record sharing her views, she did mutter under her breath, “I f—ing hate that man” in reference to Mamdani as she scurried away.

She briefly told the reporter that she does not use Facebook and is not a member of either of the aforementioned online groups — but clearly feels just as strongly as those online.

However, there are still some moms willing to go on record.

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Amid a rise in anti-Semitism, Ettus believes the current climate resembles pre-World War II for Jews.

Samantha Ettus, a Jewish activist and mom of three, is not a member of either of the Facebook groups covered by New York magazine, but the native Upper East Sider aligns herself with those who believe Mamdani is not a good fit for the Big Apple.

“For many Jews that are paying attention, we see what’s going on and we see the patterns,” Ettus told The Post. “We see how closely the environment for Jews across the world right now resembles the pre-World War II environment, and it’s a time where we can’t afford to make great mistakes.”

Meanwhile, Upper East Side moms aren’t the only ones finding themselves wrapped up in online exchanges regarding the new mayor.

On the adjacent Upper West Side — long thought to be a liberal bastion — one member of the UWS Mommas Facebook group was also advertising to locals looking to move out of New York.

Member Gitty Leiner said she knew of an excellent real estate agent for those considering moving to Florida. Others wanted to know more.

• Medical Definition: Non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) describes individuals who experience symptoms after consuming gluten despite testing negative for celiac disease or wheat allergies, lacking both a diagnostic test and a clear biological mechanism.
• Wheat Composition: Gluten serves as the primary storage protein in wheat, yet the grain also contains essential nutrients and fructans, a type of fermentable carbohydrate distinct from the protein structure.
• Primary Triggers: Evidence indicates that symptoms attributed to gluten are frequently caused by fermentable carbohydrates known as FODMAPs or result from the expectation of discomfort rather than the gluten protein itself.
• Statistical Discrepancy: While approximately 4–15% of the global population reports sensitivity to wheat or gluten, objective testing confirms reactivity in fewer than 3% of cases.
• Psychological Factors: The nocebo effect and gut-brain interactions play significant roles in symptom generation, where negative expectations regarding gluten consumption lead to physical reactions even in the absence of the protein.
• Demographic Profile: The condition is most commonly self-reported by women around 38 years of age who often identify perceived sensitivities through personal dietary experimentation prior to seeking medical advice.
• Market Forces: The rapid cultural expansion of gluten-free diets correlates with media narratives and the growth of a multi-billion dollar industry rather than advancements in medical understanding of the condition.
• Dietary Misattribution: Health improvements observed on gluten-free diets often stem from the inadvertent reduction of ultra-processed foods and FODMAP intake, reinforcing the incorrect assumption that gluten was the cause of distress.

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The Rise of a Modern Food Fear 

“Our findings show that symptoms are more often triggered by fermentable carbohydrates, commonly known as FODMAPs, by other wheat components or by people’s expectations and prior experiences with food.” 

-Jessica Biesiekierski, Head of the Human Nutrition Group at The University of Melbourne

At this point, most of us know someone who identifies as “gluten sensitive.” Culturally, this idea has grown alongside rising interest in gluten-free eating, wellness trends, and a widespread belief that gluten causes fatigue, bloating, brain fog, or other vague symptoms. However, our medical understanding of these experiences is far narrower than the cultural phenomenon surrounding them.

Non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is the medical term for this condition, referring to individuals who experience intestinal or extra-intestinal symptoms after eating gluten-containing foods but do not have celiac disease or a wheat allergy. NCGS lacks a diagnostic test, a known biological mechanism, or clear symptom patterns. NCGS is a narrower, more cautious medical label applied only after other conditions are excluded—and even then, its underlying cause remains uncertain. Yet the lack of clarity does not diminish the real discomfort many patients report.

To understand why these symptoms are so difficult to categorize, it helps to look more closely at what gluten—and wheat more broadly—actually contain.

What Gluten Actually Is and Is Not

Gluten is the main storage protein in wheat and gives dough its stretchy, elastic qualities. It provides most of the grain’s protein content. It is unusually rich in the amino acids proline and glutamine, making them difficult for the digestive system to fully break down; as a result, various gluten fragments can linger in the gut and may have biological activity. Beyond proteins, wheat provides essential nutrients such as fiber, vitamins, minerals, and, especially, fructans, a fermentable carbohydrate (FODMAP) recognized as a frequent trigger of digestive symptoms. While wheat varieties differ genetically and in their gluten content, there is no evidence that breeding over the last century has made wheat inherently more immunogenic. [1]

The Numbers Behind Gluten Sensitivity

Studies from around the world show that about 10% of people report being sensitive to gluten or wheat, though estimates range from 4–15%. But this number is significantly inflated. Yet controlled studies consistently show that only a small fraction of those tested react specifically to gluten, highlighting a gap between perception and physiological response.

There are several reasons for this gap between self-reports and verified cases:

• Self-diagnosis is common - Across high-income countries, one-third of people say they have some kind of food sensitivity. But when objectively tested, fewer than 3% do
• Verified Gluten Reactivity Is Rare - The majority of people who believe they are gluten-sensitive do not react to gluten and often are reacting to other components in wheat, especially FODMAPs—a group of short-chain carbohydrates known to trigger gas, bloating, and other digestive symptoms in many people. Additionally, there is a substantial overlap in the symptoms of irritable bowel with a “gluten allergy.”

These diagnostic ambiguities feed into broader challenges in defining what gluten sensitivity actually is.

A Diagnosis of Exclusion

As with many syndromes, there are difficulties in identifying specific diagnostic alterations, e.g., in long COVID. It is equally true for some forms of gluten sensitivity, which are categorized, with our best available evidence, as disorders of gut-brain interaction (DGBI), where they are symptoms of pain and altered GI function, yet no clear structural manifestations, e.g., irritable bowel syndrome. Methodological differences across studies make consensus difficult, but a growing number of studies suggest that FODMAPS, rather than gluten, may be the real culprit. 

![A person with a sandwich on her stomach

AI-generated content may be incorrect.](/sites/default/files/inline-images/image_80.png)Most people who report non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) share a similar demographic profile: they are typically 38-year-old women. Many individuals first identify the problem on their own, after experimenting with diet changes, and before seeking medical attention. Symptoms often begin within a few hours of eating gluten but can appear later, and they vary widely between people.

This demographic pattern likely reflects reporting behavior as much as any underlying biology.

The symptom picture is broad. Digestive problems such as bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea or constipation, reflux, nausea, gas, or mouth ulcers are common and can significantly impair day-to-day well-being. Many people also experience extra-intestinal symptoms, including fatigue, headaches, “brain fog,” skin rashes, joint or muscle pain, and changes in mood such as anxiety or depression. This wide range of nonspecific symptoms makes self-diagnosis both tempting and unreliable.

A Syndrome Without a Center

As with many syndromes, research has not yet revealed a single, consistent biological pathway. Instead, there are complex, mixed interacting influences. The lack of clear biomarkers, unreliable immune “signatures, and inconsistent intestinal changes suggest that symptoms may arise through several overlapping processes rather than one distinct cause. Studies of gluten triggering systemic immune responses, alterations of gut permeability, and microbiome characterization are at best “uncertain.” And then there is nocebo, placebo’s evil twin, where expectations play a significant role in experiencing a detrimental outcome. People often experience symptoms when they believe they consumed gluten, even when they didn’t, highlighting gut–brain interactions as a key driver.

The most fundamental challenge in NCGS research is uncertainty over whether it represents a distinct clinical entity at all—a striking contrast to the confidence with which the idea has taken hold in public culture. That cultural rise has unfolded far faster than scientific evidence could match.

From Science to Society: The Gluten-Free Boom

Over the past two decades, gluten sensitivity has evolved from a relatively obscure idea into a widely recognized cultural phenomenon. This surge of interest didn’t arise from medical breakthroughs; our understanding of “gluten sensitivity” is, at best, incomplete. Rather, it emerged from a convergence of public health narratives, wellness trends, media amplification, and commercial opportunity. As more people began attributing everyday symptoms like bloating, fatigue, or “foggy mind” to gluten, the idea of “gluten sensitivity” gained traction in popular culture far faster than the scientific evidence could keep up. 

“We would like to see public health messaging shift away from the narrative that gluten is inherently harmful, as this research shows that this often isn’t the case.”

-Jessica Biesiekierski, Head of the Human Nutrition Group at The University of Melbourne

This cultural shift has been closely tied to the explosive growth of the gluten-free marketplace. What began as a niche category for people with celiac disease is now a multibillion-dollar global industry. As public concern about gluten rose, manufacturers introduced an ever-expanding range of gluten-free breads, snacks, cereals, and convenience foods. The cycle became self-reinforcing: growing consumer interest encouraged companies to market these products as healthier or more “natural,” and the increased visibility of gluten-free options further normalized the idea that gluten is something many people should avoid—even though these substitutes vary widely in nutritional value.

The Self-Sustaining Gluten Cycle

The result is a self-sustaining cultural loop. More people try gluten-free diets out of curiosity or wellness motivations; many feel better, often because they have inadvertently reduced their intake of FODMAP-rich foods or ultra-processed products; and this perceived improvement strengthens the belief that gluten itself was the culprit. Commercial and media messaging magnify these impressions, making gluten sensitivity seem far more common—and biologically clearer—than scientific evidence currently supports. The science, meanwhile, continues to raise more questions than answers.

[1] Thereby dashing claims that more ancient wheat cultivars are “healthier.”

Source: Non-coeliac gluten sensitivity The Lancet DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01533-8

Sergio Hyland seemed like the perfect advocate. Calling himself a “fierce, relentless, implacable abolitionist,” determined to end incarceration in the United States, Hyland had spent more than two decades behind bars before joining Pennsylvania’s Working Families Party as an anti-prison organizer. His criminal record only burnished his credentials: he had pled guilty to the 2001 killing of a 15-year-old and was later charged in connection with another homicide in 2002. Once he got out of prison in 2022, Hyland launched a website offering “speaking engagements” and “harm/de-escalation tactics” training, and he frequently appeared alongside Philadelphia’s progressive prosecutor, Larry Krasner. The two even shared a news release in April 2025 announcing the Working Families Party’s endorsement of Krasner, which the prosecutor was “honored to accept.” A week later, Hyland was arrested for murdering a 30-year-old mother of two. Police discovered a stockpile of illegal guns in his home. Now Krasner’s office will have to prosecute him.

Not every violent offender commits murder after his supposed rehabilitation, of course. And Hyland has not yet been convicted of this latest charge. But his arrest for a new heinous crime suggests a broader insight that political scientist James Q. Wilson long emphasized: incarceration is often valuable simply because it takes dangerous people out of circulation, removing them from society.

It’s fashionable to blame America’s high incarceration rates on social injustice—and law enforcement—rather than lawbreaking. If policymakers would just provide disadvantaged people with sufficient resources and economic opportunity, on this view, the crime problem could be solved. That utopian vision gained traction during the mad summer of 2020, when activists, rioters, and the mainstream press, reacting to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sought to replace law enforcement with programs that target the root causes of antisocial behavior. “As a society,” wrote activist Mariame Kaba in the New York Times, “we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm.”

The truth is otherwise. As Hyland’s case exemplified, violent crime is overwhelmingly the work of a small group of repeat offenders—that is, it is highly concentrated. The remedy, as Wilson argued half a century ago in his classic book Thinking About Crime, is not social engineering but incapacitation: keeping the violent few from striking again.

Most people are not teetering on the edge of felony, waiting to become, in the Left’s favored euphemism, a “justice-impacted individual.” The overwhelming majority of Americans never engage in serious criminal behavior, let alone commit violent felonies like murder or armed robbery. But those who do are likely to do so again, the evidence shows. Indeed, crime’s concentration is one of the most well-established findings in social science. In 1972, University of Pennsylvania criminologist Marvin Wolfgang reported that just 6 percent of males in a birth cohort accounted for 52 percent of all police contacts. (Violent crime, in particular, is overwhelmingly committed by young males.) Thirty years later, a similar study in Boston found that 3 percent of males were responsible for more than half of their cohort’s arrests after age 31.

The pattern holds across time and place. In 2014, data showed that three-quarters of state prisoners—the core of America’s incarcerated population—had at least five prior arrests. Nearly 5 percent had 31 or more, a larger share than those imprisoned after just a single arrest. In 2022, the New York Times reported that “nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City . . . involved just 327 people,” or 0.004 percent of the population, who had been “arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times.” And in Oakland, a gun-violence-prevention group found that about 400 individuals—0.1 percent of the city—were responsible for most of the city’s homicides. Violence is concentrated geographically as well. It occurs primarily in poor minority neighborhoods, whose members make up most of its victims.

These figures may even understate how concentrated antisocial behavior is. Wolfgang found that the offending minority committed dozens of crimes for every one that led to arrest. Fifty years later, a similar study reported that delinquent youth “self-reported over 25 delinquent offenses for every one police contact . . . with some youth reporting upwards of 290 delinquent offenses per police contact or arrest.” Combined with the fact that more than 60 percent of violent crimes reported each year go unsolved, the implication is clear: by the time a violent offender ends up in prison, he has likely committed multiple violent acts and many lesser offenses. Again, these patterns are most common among young men “who exhibited more psychopathic features,” the 2022 study’s authors noted, and “who displayed temperamental profiles characterized by low effortful control and high negative emotionality.” As a massive study from Sweden concludes: “The majority of violent crimes are perpetrated by a small number of persistent violent offenders, typically males, characterized by early onset of violent criminality, substance abuse, personality disorders, and nonviolent criminality.”

The case for an incapacitation-first approach to crime control follows directly from these indisputable facts. An analysis of the Swedish paper reveals that violent crime would fall nearly 80 percent if perpetrators could be prevented from re-offending after their first conviction and would fall by half if they were fully incapacitated after their third. So concentrated is violent crime among a profoundly antisocial few that making even a tenth violent conviction punishable by life without parole would cut overall violent crime by 20 percent.

Convicted Philadelphia murderer Sergio Hyland became a prison abolitionist—only to be charged with committing a new killing not long after he was released. (Sabina Pierce)

It is intellectually interesting to try to discover why the five steal and the ninety-five do not,” Wilson wrote in Thinking About Crime. Yet from the point of view of public policy, he maintained, “such explanations are of little value, because government has no way of changing in any systematic fashion family backgrounds, deep-seated attitudes, friendship patterns, or media images.” Even if government were able to do these things, he continued, “the cost would be frightful—not only in money terms . . . but also in terms of those fundamental human values that would be jeopardized if government possessed the capacity to direct the inner life of the family or to mold the mental state of its citizens.”

Thinking About Crime remains the clearest articulation of a public-policy approach to criminal justice. Wilson began from the premise that a community cannot flourish under conditions of pervasive disorder. Public policy, he argued, must therefore manage crime effectively enough to secure a basic level of order—without utopian illusions but with attention to cost and “fundamental human values.”

Given crime’s extreme concentration, this chiefly means separating the antisocial few from the pro-social many. “What the government can do is to change the risks of robbery,” Wilson wrote, “and to incapacitate . . . those who rob despite the threats and alternatives society provides.” Of the punishments not deemed legally cruel and unusual, only incarceration and capital punishment guarantee incapacitation. Wilson became the leading voice in the latter half of the twentieth century pressing for more prosecutions of the antisocial few and longer sentences to keep them off the streets.

For decades, Americans intuitively accepted incarceration as justified by incapacitation. It fell out of favor, thanks to a long period of success and low crime rates, which provided an opening for activists and critics to make arguments about “mass incarceration.” Now, after years of criminal-justice reforms and anti-policing measures, crime has returned as a kitchen-table concern, but Wilson’s insights have faded from memory. We are not only far from reaffirming his conclusions; we have lost the habit of asking his questions.

Yet today’s debate over crime and punishment typically still begins with the premise that America suffers from “overincarceration.” Nearly 2 million people are held in prisons, jails, juvenile facilities, and other detention centers. As abolitionists and police-defunding advocates repeat, the U.S. rate of roughly 580 incarcerated individuals per 100,000 people remains the highest in the Western world. Starting from this premise, so different from Wilson’s public-policy approach, activists naturally ask whether the nation is locking up too many people.

As Thomas Sowell has observed, criminal justice is the only field where the first question often asked is what benefits the criminal rather than what protects the law-abiding public. Why? Wilson blamed “the causal fallacy”—the belief that “no problem is adequately addressed unless its causes are eliminated.” Embracing this fallacy turns policy on its head: a discussion that should focus on what best serves the community instead becomes a philosophical and anthropological search for the prime mover of antisocial behavior. “Wicked people exist” was Wilson’s conservative answer. That axiom is unacceptable to those unwilling to accept a moral view of human nature. And our discomfort with incapacitating the wicked has grown as the causal fallacy has taken deeper hold.

A half century after Thinking About Crime, the U.S. criminal-justice system has lost sight of its fundamental purpose, while the American public is less willing to accept the need for an incapacitation-first approach.

The modern view wrongly treats crime as a dispute between perpetrator and victim. Television dramas that let victims decide whether to “press charges” reflect this confusion. In reality, prosecutors represent “the People,” the political community harmed whenever one of its members is attacked or the law is broken within its borders. Antisocial behavior is an assault on the social order itself. Each crime signals that law-abiding citizens cannot rely on shared norms, forcing them to approach daily life with suspicion rather than goodwill. Lawlessness drives the law-abiding away; yet their interests must come first.

When they don’t, the results are predictable. Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s notorious Day One memo, for instance, laid out an anti-prosecution manual that divided offenses into two categories: a narrow set of “public safety” crimes warranting punishment; and others—such as theft, trespassing, or driving with a suspended license—that did not. Embracing the causal fallacy, Bragg promised to treat “nonviolent and minor offenses” with “root cause” strategies instead. New York went further, barring judges from considering whether defendants pose a risk of re-offending when setting bail. The effect is obvious: dangerous individuals who should be incapacitated remain free.

This mind-set is not confined to New York prosecutors; it reflects a broader cultural shift. Recurring “national reckonings” over race and identity have trained many Americans to see disparities as products of nebulous systemic oppression. Critical theory represents the ultimate root-cause hunt, insisting that hidden forces, not individual agency, explain failure or success. Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are justified as attempts to counteract these supposed causes. Today’s social-justice politics begins from the premise that finding root causes defines good policy. No wonder victimhood is coveted: it declares that one has been wronged through no fault of his own, obligating society to make amends. From here, it is only a short step to the ultimate causal fallacy: nobody deserves prison because individuals cannot fail society—only society can fail individuals.

The American Left cannot resist this reasoning. Its progressive wing, ascendant in the Democratic Party today, has embraced an ethic of moral luck, treating individual choices as mere reflections of unchosen circumstances. The Right, by contrast, retains the intellectual resources to return to first principles: so long as a lawbreaker threatens the good order of society, he must be restrained. The Right will need to bring this message forcefully to the places where it is most intuitive yet least familiar.

Wilson’s challenge to America was simple: acknowledge that some people must be prevented from preying upon others, whatever the origins of their behavior. Half a century later, his insights remain unrefuted. The best tribute to his legacy is to restore the habit of thinking about crime as a policy problem—and to reaffirm that incarceration is justified by incapacitation alone. We can keep chasing root causes while communities suffer. Or we can return to the essential work of protecting civilization from acts that Wilson rightly called “destructive to the very possibility of society.”  

Top Photo: In 2014, data showed that three-quarters of state prisoners had at least five prior arrests. (txking/iStock/Getty Images Plus)