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This case tests my own ambivalent views.
Archive for the ‘Prisons and penal policy’ Category
July 25th, 2011
July 21st, 2011
Category: Crime Control, Prisons and penal policy
My latest on community corrections, in the journal Criminology and Public Policy.
May 27th, 2011
Category: Prisons and penal policy
Bill Bennett thinks that locking people up isn’t always the best solution to the crime problem. That’s good news. There remains a puzzle: HOPE and related ideas appeal to conservative pundits and think-tanks, but Republican legislators seem firmly committed to toughness for the sake of toughness. On the other hand, liberals in office tend to [...]
May 24th, 2011
Category: Prisons and penal policy
The court told California’s politicians that if they couldn’t treat their prisoners decently, they couldn’t have as many prisoners.
May 23rd, 2011
If we handle it right, we could have lower spending and more public safety by releasing some prisoners.
May 11th, 2011
Newt Gingrich has endorsed reducing the size of the prison population. No one is listing that among the (many) reasons he won’t be the Republican nominee for President. That’s rather encouraging.
April 21st, 2011
Category: Crime Control, Prisons and penal policy
Today’s New York Times includes an amazing story by Adam Liptak and Lisa Fayle Petak. Its opener speaks for itself in underscoring the misguided mindset of our justice system. More than a decade ago, a 14-year-old boy killed his stepbrother in a scuffle that escalated from goofing around with a blowgun to an angry threat [...]
January 19th, 2011
Category: Crime Control, Prisons and penal policy
Newt Gingrich thinks that over-incarceration is wasteful government spending. Not the best reason to let people out of cells, but it has some political zing in the current environment.
December 6th, 2010
Category: California Politics, Prisons and penal policy
As the Supreme Court debates whether to force California to finally reduce overcrowding in its wretched prison system, Justice Alito asks “If 40,000 prisoners are going to be released…[do] you really believe that if you were to come back here two years after that you would be able to say they haven’t contributed to an [...]
November 11th, 2010
Category: Crime Control, Prisons and penal policy
It’s cheaper to watch offenders closely when they’re not in prison than it is to pay their room & board.