Strange bedfellows dep’t

U.S. prisons are bad, but they’re not Abu Ghraib.

Those with a political interest in minimizing the extent of the Abu Ghraib horrors and those with a substantive interest in arousing public outrage about abuses in domestic prisons have a common interest in suggesting that the two problems are more or less equivalent in extent or severity.

They aren’t.

I’m sorry Fox Butterfield let himself get taken in.

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

One thought on “Strange bedfellows dep’t”

  1. Following the Money from Prisons here to Iraq

    It's great to see the NYTimes give consideration to the similarities between the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and the torture of prisoners in the United States' prisons. In Pennsylvania and some other states, inmates are routinely stripped in

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