It’s no secret that Texas criminal law has a heavy hand, and that innocent people are frequently sucked into the system by elected judges who want to appear ‘tuff on crime’. There’s been some house cleaning statewide, but especially in Dallas County since they got a new DA, Craig Watkins. I can’t find any reliable [...]
So it’s not just my perception that tuff on crime crowd aren’t usually the sharpest knives in the drawer. A couple of high-profile exonerations have left some overly-agressive prosecuters red-faced. One man in Dallas had 27 years of his life stolen away by a single victim’s mis-identification. Another man in New York state was freed [...]
Word from Sacramento comes that the Governator will be taking the unprecedented step of releasing up to 20,000 non-violent prisoners from California jails in an effort to ease the outrageous overcrowding there. Frankly, once you rule out those in for violence and the sex-crimes, you’re mostly left with the dope smokers, so even though everyone seems [...]
Even if you think you know everything about how the War on Drugs has unfolded, you really ought to read this article in the newest Rolling Stone magazine: How America Lost the War on Drugs.
In a blistering overview of 40 years of failed policy, Ben Wallace-Wells examines the evolving federal efforts from the perspective of presidents, [...]
One running question that seems to follow me from place to place lately, like some lost puppy: what’s it really for?
Reading Scott Henson’s blog about the ‘Texas Criminal Justice Reverse Lottery‘ and the abysmal clearance rates for serious crimes, and I’ve got to wonder about every part of the justice system. What’s any of it [...]
A major difficulty in even bringing up problems with the criminal justice system is an apparently universal assumption that any convicted felon is worthy of any torment we can lay upon him. Only in the case of an innocent man executed by the state can there be the appropriate sense of indignity at the incompetence [...]
I have been philosophically opposed to prisons for several years. Although I have made a few blog posts on the idea and have tossed it between a few friends, I haven’t really done anything about this opposition.
A few weeks ago, pointed out a blog that highlights criminal justice in Texas: Grits for Breakfast is [...]
My anti-prison stance grows stronger each year. Periodically, we’re treated to an academic report that announces that no matter what crime is studied, prisons just make better criminals. The ones showing how prisons turn non-violent drug users into violent thugs have been common since the 80’s. This new one on how prisons help build and [...]