Interesting concurring opinion by Posner the other day in U.S. v. Craig. Basically, the defendant pled to four counts of creating child porn — which he created in an awful and horrifying way. He could have gotten 30 years for each count, but the judge gave him 50 (30 on...
Those of us who work in the criminal justice system — whether lawyers, judges, social workers or whatever — are fairly cognizant of the fact that the vast majority of people who get arrested aren’t really a problem for society. Depending on the stats you’re looking at, for something...
The AP’s Sam Hananel has a nifty piece on Law.com today, called “Drug Courts Successful for Few Who Get In.” He sums up the situation fairly well. The short version is “drug court works, and with more funding it would work even more.” A lot of crime is the...
The D.C. Circuit weighed in today on an important issue that has split the circuits evenly: whether a sentencing court can give extra time in prison, to increase the opportunity for rehabilitation of the prisoner. Some circuits say it’s fine, some say it’s prohibited by law. -=-=-=- 18 U.S.C. §...
The respected journal Science will publish tomorrow a research study that suggests that the threat of punishment can keep people from getting in trouble. Stop the presses! You’d think that this might have been studied before. But previous studies (focusing on freeloading vs. pro-social behavior) only focused on short-term outcomes....
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