Showing posts with label prison. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prison. Show all posts

California To Release All Non Violent Drug War Prisoners

by Kelsie Paige. Voters may room in prison for the violent. California just voted to release all their drug prisoners and will no longer allow felony convictions for drugs! Wow and Wow! Peace, Love and NeverGetBusted. California approved a major shift against mass incarceration on Tuesday in a vote that could lead to the    ... MORE

The Messy Politics of California's Overcrowded Prison Crisis

by Zach Weissmueller. "A prison that deprives prisoners of basic sustenance, including adequate medical care, is incompatible with the concept of human dignity and has no place in civilized society," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority in a Supreme Court ruling against Governor Jerry Brown and the state of California in the   ... MORE

Jeff Mizanskey Is Serving Life in Prison for Marijuana

by Aaron Malin.    Rapists and murderers come and go, but he's there for the duration. As I prepared to leave home for my interview with Jeff Mizanskey I looked up the address of the prison where he is held. In disbelief, I typed the characters into the GPS on my phone: 8200 No More Victims Road. Jeff Mizanskey is serving a life sentence without   ... MORE 

Barry Farber: Little Boy, Big Flash

In praise of the life-saving bomb.     A recent study revealed that over 98 percent of 3-year-olds believe the reason there’s glass on television sets is to keep the people from falling out! Is there a comparably grotesque absurdity among grown-ups? The answer is Yes, and it comes to mind every August when the anniversary of the      ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Why Prosecutors Love Mandatory Minimums

Prosecutorial power hinders justice process.   In 1996, when he was the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Eric Holder urged the D.C. Council to reinstate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, which it had abolished in 1994. Two decades later, as an attorney general who has repeatedly criticized "draconian"       ... MORE

The Shocking Way That Some Prisons Are Kept Full

by Brandon Weber.     Crony capitalism hits a new low. Let's see: Privatize prisons so companies make profits on them, create a financial penalty for the state or city they're located in if they don't keep them full, and bribe members of Congress to keep the system humming ... hmmm, can't possibly see how this could go wrong!       ... MORE

Greg Young: Legally, The Police Do Not Have To Protect You – But You Will Go To Jail For Not Assisting Them

Public servants or public masters?     Just a little while ago, there was a video going around that showed an officer being beaten by a citizen in a fight. The police chief said he was disappointed and surprised that people stood by and let it happen. On the other hand, the video of the guy (who was severely injured) that stopped a knife-wielding    ... MORE

Steve Silverman: 8 Jury Nullification Objections Rebutted

You can't exercise your rights unless you know them.      A recent Chicago Tribune editorial targets a new fully informed jury bill introduced by the New Hampshire House of Representatives. The bill would strengthen the current state law passed in 2012 that allows lawyers “to inform the jury of its right to judge the facts and the      ... MORE

Paul Bonneau: Evil Rationalizations For Good People

Why is it that evil proliferates?     What mechanism keeps it going? Who is to blame? Why are there so many wars and occupations? Why such huge amounts of theft (“taxes”, fines, fees and “civil forfeiture”)? Why are so many nonviolent people in jail? What keeps the “War on Some Drugs” going? Why does the police state expand and expand?  ... MORE

London Economists Slam The War On Drugs

New report details futility of drug war.      In an 81-page report released Monday evening, the best and brightest minds in the economic drug policy world send the United Nations a loaded message about the drug war: Enough. The individual analyses of the economists and drug policy experts, signed by five Nobel Prize winners in economics, ... MORE

Christopher West: Lincoln Sucked At Ending Slavery

The exception to the 13th Amendment.     Death row inmate Ray Jasper, who has never used the internet, wrote an article that went viral. Part of his appeal is that he made it sound like he was innocent. Not true, it turns out he slit a man’s throat. But what stuck out to me, was his description of the prison system. First off, he was the only black  ... MORE

Robert P. Murphy: Economist Debate The Minimum Wage

Why wage regulation hurts low-skill workers.       Economists famously argue about everything. Even so, it used to be that economists across the board—whether left, right, or center—generally agreed that the minimum wage was ill-suited to help the poor. As we still teach introductory students in Econ 101, a price floor on low-skilled    ... MORE

States Consider A More Libertarian Approach To Crime

by Steven Greenhut.         Leaders in the nation’s two most populous states have waged a rhetorical grudge match over their respective political approaches. In California, dominant Democrats are proud of their efforts to pioneer social and environmental policy. In Texas, majority Republicans boast about their commitment to business     ... MORE 

Federal Prison Population Grows 27% In Ten Years

Who says government fails to stimulate growth?         The number of federal prison inmates has grown 27 percent in the last decade, according the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In a report examining the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) budget, the GAO found that prison population is rising: The Department of Justice’s      ... MORE

Humberto Fontova: Caveat On Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela's commitment to liberty.     A Martian visiting earth this week, coasting TV channels and perusing papers, would have to conclude that among the items that most interest this planet’s news bureaus is the plight of former political prisoners, especially black ones. Well, many Cubans (many of them black) suffered longer and    ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: The Punishment Is The Crime

Thousands serve life sentence for nonviolent offenses.  Nine years ago, Ronald Washington swiped two Michael Jordan jerseys from a Foot Locker in Shreveport, Louisiana. Although the shirts were on sale for $45 each, they were officially priced at $60, putting their combined value above $100. The difference between the discounted price and   ... MORE

3,278 Inmates Serving Life For Nonviolent Offenses

by Jess Remington.       The ACLU released a new report this week examining the growing trend of judges sentencing nonviolent offenders to life in prison without parole. The ACLU found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the War on Drugs, mandatory minimums, and “tough-on-crime” policies are to blame. The report, A Living Death: A Life Without Parole  ... MORE

Radley Balko: This Week In Innocence

Bad cop costs men 17 years in prison.      Two Washington state men will get $10.5 million after spending 17 years in prison for a rape they didn't commit. It's easy to dismiss these exoneration stories as the product of an imperfect system that sometimes makes mistakes. But read past the headline, and you'll see that they're often less the      ... MORE