First, the good news:
The jerk working for an on-line mattress discounter who sent a nasty note back to a soldier in Iraq about the soldier’s request to buy mattresses so he and his buddies wouldn’t continue to provide midnight snacks for the sand fleas has been fired.
Now the bad news:
No one in the chain of command responsible for the fact that those soldiers didn’t have Army-issue mattresses has been fired, or will be fired.
Neither, of course, has any of the people responsible for providing inadequately armored vehicles, obsolete body armor, and other logistical outrages.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman